Bernhard, Thomas - Michael Bachem (review date Summer 1975)

Michael Bachem (review date Summer 1975)

SOURCE: A review of Die Macht der Gewohnheit, in Books Abroad, Vol. 49, No. 3, Summer, 1975, pp. 537–38.

[In the following review, Bachem provides a mixed assessment of Force of Habit.]

In his earlier play Die Jagdgesellschaft Thomas Bernhard had already commented that we never know what is a comedy and what a tragedy. Certainly this is true of Die Macht der Gewohnheit (Force of Habit), which is superficially designated as a comedy. But what could be comical about a three-act play featuring an aging circus director, a vain juggler, an obscene lion tamer, a silly clown whose only routine seems to be to let his cap slip off his head and catch it again, and the director’s equally silly granddaughter. The comedy is merely external, due to the presence of stock comic characters in a stock comic setting.

The action is at best ludicrous: for years the director...

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