GESCHICHTEN AUS DEM WIENER WALD

Arthur-Schnitzler-Platz 1

1070 Wien

 

The butcher Oskar loves Marianne, the daughter of the magic king, and wants to marry her. A scandal ensues at the engagement party: Marianne falls head over heels in love with the scoundrel Alfred, breaking off from Oskar and her old life. It quickly becomes clear that her hopes for a new, vast, and above all, completely different world will not stand up to reality. The initially exciting union is followed by social decline. And in the air, there is a ringing and singing like a waltz melody...

Erich Kästner called his fellow writer's work "A Viennese folk play against the Viennese folk play." Horváth indeed radically breaks with the dramatic tradition, yet rewrites and continues it. He presents the suburban idyll as a facade behind which excesses of meanness and malice unfold, language as a makeshift camouflage for his own insecurity and hopelessness. He always emphasized that his aim was not to unmask humanity, but rather consciousness. His goal is not satire, but rather "to portray the world as it unfortunately is."

(Source: volkstheater.at)