Zuckmayer belongs among the relatively few humorists Germany has produced. He has a depth of warmly reflective perception that never fails to hit the target. His generally well-constructed plays produce theatrical effects that ultimately silence many a critical objection. His talent as a storyteller, developed by study of the best traditions, impressively reveals an open, realistic, and humane commitment to the world. Strong imagery abounds in his poetry and epic descriptions of nature.

The sources from which Zuckmayer draws his inspiration can be found in the themes of popular art, songs, fairy tales, chronicles, and anecdotes. Such a basis in the natural and folkloristic is essentially a romantic trait and is most apparent in his poems, stories, and early plays, but it does not preclude astute observation and lifelike characterization of his country-men as real people. (p. 2)

The Merry Vineyard [1924] is a well-made play, based on the best dramatic rules; it is deft and exhilarating and has a hardy eroticism without—according to today's standards—shocking the audience through "pornographic" excursions. But, since it must have seemed rather rustic to a metropolitan public, and its dialect form limited it regionally, no one could have foreseen that it would be universally received with such vociferous exultation. Nor can the humorous depiction of real life or its timely political sidelights fully account for its success. The plot is not even particularly well focused dramatically; rather, a picturebook sequence of scenes is well seasoned with nightclub "gags."

The core of the plot involves a colorfully mixed group of characters who congregate at the estate of a vineyard owner at the time of grape picking. Couples search for each other but fail to get together or are separated again…. Clearly it cannot have been the raw material of the plot alone, skillfully as it may have been constructed, that created euphoria in the German audience of 1925, eliciting volleys of laughter. Not just one element, but a whole complex, was responsible for the reaction. After all the poetic ecstasies of expressionist drama and the intricate problem plays of the early postwar years, the theater audience—provided it was not just looking for shallow entertainment—was starved for fresh fare…. With his prolific versatility in portraying scenic atmosphere as well as social situations, Zuckmayer was able to reach large and very different groups of spectators. Beneath the uncontestedly gross buffoonery in many of his stage effects there was a level of social satire that satisfied even the more sophisticated demands of an intelligent audience, despite some critical reservations. (pp. 36-8)

Of all Zuckmayer's plays, The Merry Vineyard probably remains the most popular…. The Merry Vineyard and others of his early plays may be viewed as conscious attempts at naturalism, stylistically expanded through topical insertions of actual quotations and contemporary speech. (p. 39)

What distinguished Zuckmayer from his contemporaries and helped him to be continuously successful was his remarkable ability to strike a balance between the tragic and the brighter side of life. This was particularly true in regard to his rustic scenes and his skillfully drawn characterizations of simple people and their earthy humor.

Zuckmayer's skill at enlivening the action with colorful images and scenes added to his popularity. Perfectly chosen local accents sustained the atmosphere of tension in the plot. During the love scenes between Johann Bückler and his Julchen [in Schinderhannes (1972)], the language turned soft and plain, almost like a folksong. Without sentimentality, many scenes attain the melodious tone of pure poetry. Zuckmayer's folk romance—as Schinderhannes might best be called—once again gave to the theater what was typical of the theater: moments of emotion, at times lyrical and at others dramatically tense. (p. 43)

Zuckmayer's subsidiary characters, especially figures in the mob, are often more true to life than some of his overdrawn or idealized heroes and heroines. However, Schinderhannes and his Julchen maintain their proper folk tone until the final curtain. That tone, now familiar on the stage, was the voice of the people. (pp. 45-6)

For a long time Zuckmayer contemplated the idea of a play on the theme of Till Eulenspiegel. The character of the Low German roguish jester and popular hero had always captivated him, and he intended to place the figure in a situation of contemporary relevance. But his ideas never crystallized into a clear concept. (p. 50)

[However, a dramatization of the true story of the Captain of Köpenick appealed to him as] a satire on Prussian militarism. The proverbial "Köpenickiad" was still fresh in the memory of his contemporaries, and the crafty swindles of the poor cobbler and recidivist convict had truly Eulenspiegel-like traits. At least one characteristic was shared by the false captain and the medieval thief: both used the weapon of the underdog cunning, to pull the mighty by the nose, thereby preserving the appearance of innocence….

Eulenspiegel had been the clever rebel among despised and oppressed peasants. The cobbler Voigt—the alleged captain—belonged to the poorest of the poor, "the fifth estate," to whom the state and the authorities refused even the right to live and work. The social implications of the popular rascal of legend were probably of secondary importance to Zuckmayer. He, like many others, saw first of all a situation in which the apparent prestige of the military caste and authoritarian state could be unmasked and ridiculed.

Zuckmayer subtitled [The Captain of Köpenick (1931)] … "A German Fairytale in Four Acts." Like other such stories, it could produce tears and laughter at the same time. The fate of the homeless, haunted man was tragic, but everything cheered up when the tables were turned, as if by magic. And Zuckmayer's fairy tale actually included a magic charm: the uniform. It was a long shot, but he used it masterfully. While adapting the rather undramatic anecdote to the stage, he found in the uniform (a necessary item of the plot) a secondary, magical meaning. It became the counterpart of the small, insignificant man. (pp. 51-2)

Not with the teasing probes of the bitter satirist, but with the sympathy of a compassionate though bemused observer, the playwright fused his images into a realistic whole. The "burlesque" of the discarded uniform ran parallel to the shoemaker's thorny road. It was a superb comic device…. (p. 54)

Although Zuckmayer lacked the biting wit of the true satirist, the character of this frustrated strategist, who becomes the unwitting cause of the comedy about the uniform, has all the earmarks of satire. In the first part of the play …, he created a masterpiece of social parody. It might even have been interpreted as a model for the theater of the absurd…. But as a realist, Zuckmayer never allowed his audience to forget that he was presenting, not the product of a ludicrous imagination, but an apparent historical reality in all its grotesque contradictions. (pp. 54-5)

In The Captain of Köpenick Carl Zuckmayer unequivocally confirmed the humanistic creed of his youth. With this play he clearly rejected the powers responsible for the German catastrophe [of World War I]….

[Retreating from Germany to Austria,] Zuckmayer enjoyed a time of contemplative creativity in his country hideaway from 1933 to 1938. His literary efforts of that period, especially the prose pieces inspired by the landscape, as well as poetry and plays, reveal that he was anxious to avoid direct involvement in politics. It might be called an escape into nature, or at least a covert withdrawal and contemplation of his true impulses and inclinations…. [He] did not avoid the problems of his time but transposed them into events and figures that became timeless mirrors of the dissonances in the world. (p. 57)

As an epic creator, always cognizant of the fullness of life, Zuckmayer was apparently not satisfied with the tragic theme [he created for his novel Salwàre (1936)]. He invented a series of subsidiary plots: a love story … and additional secondary incidents that form a sort of detective story. Such intertwining, suspenseful plot elements are characteristic of the traditional novel. Zuckmayer's main characters appear somewhat romantically overdrawn; the tragic pathos of their behavior is stretched to the very limits of the probable. As usual, the secondary characters seem more realistic and closer to life. But the author is most successful in his visually impressive description of the colorful South-Tyrolean landscape. Despite the quality of these literally "picturesque" scenic descriptions, the reader is asked to breathe rather more mountain air than is good for him. (pp. 60-1)

In its revised version [The Music and Life of Carl Michael Bellman (1938)] has been produced under the title Ulla Winblad…. Bellman, known in the history of literature as the "Villon of the Swedish rococo," was a man with whom Zuckmayer could identify…. It was the first of Zuckmayer's plays to use a ballad-like epic style, a sequence of tableaux rather than a dramatic progression of scenes. Typical of this style were the interludes, in which characters of Bellman's imagination appeared to offer commentary, as well as the insertions of original songs by the Swedish poet into the scenes. Quotations and notes supported the action on the stage, a procedure not entirely unlike that used by Bertolt Brecht.

Like many other dramatizers of actual events, Carl Zuckmayer contented himself with a few selected approximations to historical facts [as background]…. [In the foreground] were the antics of Bellman, a man addicted to wine, women, and song. His sweetheart, Ulla Winblad, also a historical figure, was freely transformed. (pp. 62-3)

[In this play, Zuckmayer] achieved an almost unpolitical view of international politics. According to his ideal conception, the meaning of art was "the blending of utmost freedom with utmost discipline." Love was to complement reason. When Zuckmayer's king and other characters express such gems of wisdom as that the state, as a work of art, should mean more than an ant hill, they are no doubt revealing the author's political beliefs. Yet the true poetry of the play rests less on its pseudo-political pronouncements than on the inventive creation of imaginary characters….

Although many passages of Bellman mirror the fate of a man without a country, that fate is always romantically transformed. (p. 64)

[In 1945 Zuckmayer finished The Devil's General.] Set in the Third Reich and featuring a "flying ace" from Hitler's Luftwaffe, the play became Carl Zuckmayer's second great and lasting hit. It dominated the repertory of German theaters during the first years after the Second World War as The Merry Vineyard had done during the 1920s.

The Devil's General has remained controversial ever since its first performance in Germany in 1947…. [It] elicited highly ambivalent analyses and opinions among reviewers and in the critical history of contemporary literature…. The author himself …, after weighing the pros and cons,… later decided to rewrite certain controversial passages.

The historical events and personal ties from which his plot was drawn are well known. In December, 1941, the German press reported that the commander-in-chief of the German Luftwaffe, Ernst Udet, had fatally crashed during the test flight of a new plane model. He was given a state funeral. Udet had been an old friend and war buddy of Zuckmayer, whom he had visited in Berlin as late as 1936. Although a confirmed opponent of the Hitler dictatorship, Udet had nevertheless offered his services to a government he knew to be unjust. His passion for flying, which had earned him many laurels in the past, made it impossible for him to give up his profession. (pp. 69-70)

Zuckmayer was attracted by the daring courage and the lust for adventure in this high-minded but not very clear-thinking hero, whose recognition of the horror came too late. Fervent opponents of the Hitler regime, critical advocates of internal resistance, have accused Zuckmayer of idealizing the character of Harras/Udet, who, had after all, served an inhuman system. (pp. 71-2)

The majority of the German theater audience in 1947 shared Zuckmayer's sympathy for his hero…. Implanted in the tragedy of General Harras was his creator's mythical-religious conviction about the eternal law, to which intellect, nature, and life were to be subjugated: "If it is complied with, it spells freedom."

The Devil's General would not, however, be a true Zuckmayer play if it exhausted itself in the conflict of ideas and clash of sentiments. Once again the born playwright succeeded in creating living people…. (p. 72)

Zuckmayer knew the language of all his characters and let them speak the way they really spoke. He caught each intonation exactly…. The result was a true picture of real life…. The atmosphere was right, although the tragic interpretation of what was happening on the stage—the subtitle of the last act mentions damnation—could not remain uncontroversial. After all, it had not been the principle of compensatory justice that had brought about the victory, but the rational planning and material superiority of the forces allied against Hitler's military might. (pp. 72-3)

[Zuckmayer] did not believe in a black-and-white division of nations into the "chosen" and the "damned." Every now and then the belated German romantic in him came to the fore, loving all things passionate and adventurous—in good as in evil. (p. 73)

Arnold Bauer, in his Carl Zuckmayer, translated by Edith Simmons (translation coypright © 1976 by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc.), Ungar, 1976, 92 p.