Criticism > Drama Criticism > Handke, Peter - Nicholas Hern (essay date 1971)
Handke, Peter - Nicholas Hern (essay date 1971)
Nicholas Hern (essay date 1971)
SOURCE: Hern, Nicholas. “Offending the Audience.” In Peter Handke: Theatre and Anti-Theatre, pp. 30-45. London: Oswald Wolff, 1971.
[In the following essay, Hern disusses the theatrics involved in Offending the Audience and how this play differs from standard theatrical productions time.]
The text of Offending the Audience is prefaced by a short list of seventeen ‘Rules for the Actors’ (this is the only time Handke uses the word ‘actor’ in connection with his Sprechstücke, otherwise they are speakers: the casting for this play is simply ‘Four speakers’). These rules are a series of ‘look and listen and learn’ instructions, directing the actors' attention to various more or less mundane sights and sounds, to be heard emanating from Catholic churches, football crowds, riots, debates, simultaneous translation systems, bicycle wheels, cement mixers, trains, the...
[The entire page is 4668 words long]
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- Introduction
- Principal Works
- Criticism: General Commentary
- Criticism: Publikumsbeschimpfung (Offending The Audience)
- Criticism: Kaspar
- Criticism: Der Ritt üEber Den Bodensee (The Ride Across Lake Constance)
- Criticism: Die UnvernüNftigen Sterben Aus (They Are Dying Out)
- Criticism: Das Spiel Vom Fragen Oder (Voyage To The Sonorous Land)
- Criticism: Die Stunde Da Wir Nichts Voneinander Der WuβTen: (The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other)
- Criticism: Die Fahrt Im Einbaum Oder Das Stuck Zum Film Vom Krieg (The Canoe Trip Or The Play Of The Film Of The War)
- Further Reading
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