The Ride Across Lake Constance (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Peter Handke
- First Published: 1971
- Type of Plot: Surrealist
- Time of Work: Unspecified
- Setting: A stage
- Principal Characters: Woman with White Scarf, Emil Jannings, Heinrich George, Elisabeth Bergner, Erich von Stroheim, Henny Porten, Alice
- Genres: Drama, Surrealist literature
- Subjects: Language or languages, 1960’s, Acting or actors, Perception, Communication, Reality
- Locales: Lake Constance, Germany
The Play
The Ride Across Lake Constance violates many of the familiar conventions of the theater. This is immediately apparent in the play’s treatment of its characters. In the printed text the characters are arbitrarily assigned the names of various celebrated German film actors. In performance, however, the stage directions explain that the actors should be called by their own names. “The actors are and play themselves at the same time,” Peter Handke notes. Thus from the beginning the audience is invited to consider what it means to play a role, to act a part,...
[The entire page is 3348 words long]
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