Kaspar

Kaspar

    Author: Peter Handke

    First Performance: 1968, Frankfurt-am-Main

    Published: 1967

    First English Translation: 1969

    Genre: Drama in 1 act (65 scenes); German prose and free verse

    Setting: Bare stage, indeterminate period

    Cast: 6m, 3 voices (m or f)

Kaspar, an innocent, clown-like figure, stumbles around on the stage, trying to come to terms with his environment. At first he is unable to speak, but then manages to repeat the one sentence he knows: ‘I want to become someone like somebody else was once.’ He is bombarded by the voices of three invisible speakers, who gradually destroy Kaspar's sentence, and he begins the slow process of learning language. With more linguistic control, he gains more confidence; for now that he can name things, he can establish order: ‘Every sentence...

[The entire page is 332 words long]

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