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Nightmare Memories in Viennese Theater
| Article
# : |
15090 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1989 |
2,840 Words |
| Author
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John Elsom
John Elsom is a contributing editor to The World & I. |
This article examines how the social and moral question of
contemporary Austria's relationship with its Nazi past is
being treated in the Viennese theater. The dialectic of
drama and society exemplified in this article links it with
those in Currents in Modern Thought (p.462), collected
under the title "Theater: From the Mask to the Moderns."
These discuss the relation of dramatic art to its culture,
from the Greeks to Samuel Beckett, and from the East as
well as the West.
Vienna often reminds me of the aging Broadway star Carlotta in Stephen Sondheim's Follies, who sings, "Good times and bum times, I've seen them all, and, my dear, I'm still here."
Like Carlotta, Vienna has acquired over the years a magnificent wardrobe and a doubtful reputation. Once, not so long ago, she kicked and danced across Europe's political stage as the glittering imperial city of the Hapsburgs, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, in semiretirement, she is only the capital of the small, neutral republic of Austria, squeezed between East and West, in the heart of Europe.
But she still has several places to her name, and shops that look like palaces, and squares that were invented for Hollywood before Hollywood itself was invented. Still stylish, though not always
... (1993 of 16736 Characters)
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