Kaspar (Modern Plays) - Softcover

Peter Handke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0413289109 ISBN 13: 9780413289100

Publisher: Methuen Drama (UK), 1972

Synopsis

'Kaspar is based on the historical case of a 16-year-old boy who appeared from nowhere in Nuremberg in 1828 and who had to be taught to speak from scratch . . . Handke's play is a downright attack on the way language is used by a corrupt society to depersonalise the individual'. - Michael Billington, the Guardian.

'Handke's most sustained study in social indoctrination . . . there could be no better introduction to Handke.' - Irving Wardle, The Times.

Kaspar is the most extraordinary and impressive play to date by Peter Handke. First staged in Germany in 1968, it was hailed by Max Frisch as 'the play of the decade'. The central character is Kaspar, a figure based on the historical Kaspar Hauser, an autistic adolescent, who is guided and taught until he speaks 'normally', by the voices of unseen prompters. As the words begin to coincide with reality, Kaspar learns to manipulate both. In the latter part of the play the tension between the individual and 'the others' is further expressed through the image of the original Kaspar surrounded by a host of identical 'Kaspars'.

Having chosen language as a vehicle, Peter Handke explores it as a means of oppression - a means of creating artificial uniformity by teaching people to comprehend the world only in terms of the speech patterns they are given.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Handke was born in Griffen, Austria, in 1942 and studied law at the University of Graz. In 1996 his first novel was published and his first play, Offending the Audience, was staged in Frankfurt. This was seen in London in 1971 and was followed by productions of My Foot My Tutor (1971), Self Accusation, Prophecy and Calling for Help (1972), Kaspar and The Ride Across Lake Constance (1973), the latter transferring successfully to the West End, They are Dying Out (National Theatre, 1976 and The Long Way Round (National Theatre, 1989). His novels and other writings include The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (subsequently made into an award-winning film), Short Letter, Long Farewell and the semi-autobiographical A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, which were published in Britain in 1977; The Left-Handed Woman (1980), a novel drawn from this his film of the same title, which he directed himself; the trilogy of thematically connected novels, Slow Homecoming (1985); his novel Across (1986); Repetition (1988); Afternoon of a Writer (1989); and Absence (1990).

Edition details

• Publisher: Methuen Drama (UK)
• Publication date: 1972
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0413289109
• ISBN 13: 9780413289100
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96