SOURCE: Pickar, Gertrud Bauer. “Hades Revisited: Max Frisch's Triptychon.” German Quarterly 59, no. 1 (winter 1986): 52-64.

[In the following essay, Pickar compares Triptychon to Nun singen sie wieder and Thornton Wilder's Our Town in order to illuminate Frisch's thematic and structural concerns.]

Since the publication of Santa Cruz in 1944, Max Frisch has written and published ten additional works for the stage. Their study reveals both the ebb and flow of his thematic concerns and his enduring interest in the nature and ramifications of man's propensity to make images of himself and his fellow men. Unmistakable, too, are his continued experimentation with dramatic form and structure and the progressive development of his own unique form of narrative drama with its manipulation of time, place, and reality.

Frisch's interest in probing the bounds of dramatic form can be attributed at least in part to the impact of Thornton Wilder's plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth.¹ The use of narrator figures, the suspension or manipulation of chronological time and traditional concepts of space, and the flexibility of character-identification and alteration are among the features of Frisch's dramatic works which can be traced to Wilder's influence. This influence did not cease with Frisch's early works, but rather provided him with a stimulus in his continuing exploration of the potentials of the theater for presenting his own view of man and his world. Indeed, Wilder's influence is still detectable in Frisch's last dramatic work, Triptychon, published in 1980, a work which is, at the same time, unquestionably the product of Frisch's personal development and the result of his persistent pursuit of the narrative potential of the theater.

Yet while Triptychon represents Frisch's latest thinking about the possibilities of the theater for transcending traditional barriers and realities, it also marks a return to constellations and situations which he had explored thirty-five years earlier in his second dramatic work, Nun singen sie wieder. The similarities and differences of these two dramas and their affinity to Wilder's Our Town are striking and help to clarify Frisch's current concerns—thematic and structural—and to reveal the current state of the art for Frisch.

The presentation of both living and dead on the stage in central, speaking roles in these plays constitutes the most obvious similarity between them and provides a convenient starting point for discussion. The third act of Our Town is set in a cemetery—the dead, seated in rows on stage like parishioners in church pews, speak to each other and are able to see and hear the living, though they themselves remain invisible and inaudible to them. When Emily, shortly after her burial, returns to the realm of the living—and the past—in order to relive or, more accurately, to witness the day of her twelfth birthday, she is frustrated by the knowledge of subsequent events and the inability to be heard by the others. The insight she gains from that experience, “That's all human beings are. Just blind people”² and “They don't understand, do they?” (64), confirms the consensus among the dead, which equates human existence with “[i]gnorance and blindness” (63).

Although Frisch's two works seem to present a similar assessment of man's behavior, there is a striking difference in the treatment of the dead. In Wilder's Own Town, the stage manager comments:

You know as well as I do that the dead don't stay interested in us living people very long. Gradually, gradually they lose hold of the earth … and the ambitions they had … and the pleasures they had … and the things they suffered … and the people they loved

(52)

and the work illustrates that position. The figures in Frisch's early work, on the other hand, achieve after death a degree of distance, but they also retain an interest in their earlier existence and in the relationships they had during their lives; those in his latest drama display no interest in the living, rather they remain forever caught in the patterns of their former lives.

Nun singen sie wieder, spawned by the experiences and hatreds of the Second World War, was a plea for sanity and a better future in the aftermath of the horrendous years of war. It presents a passionate statement about the inhumanity of war and the need for understanding and tolerance among human beings. It depicts soldiers of both sides torn by thoughts of their loved ones at home, questioning the meaning of life in general and, in particular, the manner in which they had spent their own lives. The work shows both parties convinced of, or at least proclaiming, the rightness of their side and adamantly condemning the other as barbarous and demonic. Both groups employ identical words and phrases in evoking the memory of loved ones and in indicting the enemy, a device Frisch uses to emphasize the equality of the human condition and the universality of human experience, human desires and frailties.

Unlike Wilder's drama where the dead are knowing, but essentially passive and statal, Frisch's work depicts the dead as both active and concerned with the living and with themselves. Thus the downed airmen, with the priest and a child as teachers, are introduced to a new way of living. While death and destruction continue in the realm of the living, they are reeducated in the simplicity of an authentic existence, which includes learning to bake bread from the grain which was not being planted, harvested, and hence consumed by the living. Gradually, the dead come to realize their own failure to live life fully and recognize with pain that the living, who remain caught in a net of blind prejudices, thoughts of revenge, and false materialistic goals, are doomed to repeat the errors of their predecessors. By thus perpetuating the mistakes and the suffering of the past, they continue in its heritage of pain, death, hatred and cruelty. In their way, the living, too, keep singing “the same old song”; it is, however, not a song of faith and solidarity but of prejudice and materialism.

Triptychon, the product of the elderly Frisch, is marked by a similar fluidity of time and space, a juxtaposition of the living and the dead, a sense of the interrelatedness of individual existences, and a belief in the universality of the human condition. There are, however, significant changes in the thematic focus of this later drama and in the thrust of its message, changes which are also reflected in the manner of the interaction between the dead and the living. Just as their relationships appear more constrained, the structure of the work itself is drawn more tightly, the divisions are more rigid, the text more formalized.³

Frisch, living in a now prosperous Europe no longer rent by military hostilities, is concerned in this work not with conflicts between peoples and the hatred, suffering, and inhumanity of such warfare, but with conflicts between individuals and their emotional and psychological ramifications. Triptychon depicts the failure to communicate and to comprehend between man and woman, husband and wife, father and child, rather than between Germans and Englishmen. Though the perimeters of conflict are on a more intimate scale, the impact is not lessened, and Frisch is unrelenting in his illumination of the pain and strain of failed interpersonal relationships.

The work, as its title already indicates, has a tripartite structure. The first of the Bilder, set in the realm of the living, depicts a funeral reception at the home of the widow Proll and the interaction of the funeral guests with her and with each other. Proll himself appears on stage immediately after the pastor makes a reference to Lazarus, and the timing of his appearance links it ironically with the Biblical incidents of raising of the dead. Proll, however, is not visible to the other figures. Although his widow addresses him, her comments are intentionally ambiguous: “Ich sehe ihn. Wie er in seinem Sessel sitzt. Ich höre die ganze Zeit, was Matthis denkt” (10). The question remains whether she sees him, senses his presence, or merely feels the need to talk to him as if he were present.⁴ Her frustrations, even bitterness, the emptiness of their relationship, and the absence of any strong personal ties in the life of the deceased become evident during the various conversations and in the widow's monologs.⁵ His silence and abrupt departure underscore the lack of communication which marked their marriage and set the tone for the relationships which are depicted subsequently in the course of the drama.

The second section, with an expanded cast of characters, takes place entirely in the realm of the dead at some unspecified, but subsequent point in time. Spring, which plays a significant role as a symbol of hope and new life in Nun singen sie wieder, is again prominent in Triptychon. Here, however, the enduring or recurring spring of the play's setting is a season bereft of positive connotations.⁶ The scene appears to be set simultaneously both specifically in the vicinity of Proll's residence⁷—during the course of the scene, both Proll and his father attempt to fish (on stage) in the stream near their home—and universally in an undefinable version of Hades, in which the stream takes on the role of the river Styx. As the scene progresses, the fates of Proll and of those whose lives had involved him, or had at least touched upon his are revealed. The figures move about the stage, reenacting segments of their past, repeating fragments of earlier conversations and remaining throughout captives of their unresolved relationships.

Their encounters with one another are limited and unsatisfactory for the participants. They may be introduced or reintroduced to one another, but their interaction remains bound to the patterns of their earlier encounters. There is no possibility for new relationships or for change: a convict attempts to establish contact with his victim, but the latter remains oblivious to his efforts—he had never dealt with him in life and cannot now.⁸ A gentleman caller with long-stemmed roses appears, but does not converse with his former lover—in life theirs had not been a verbal relationship, and Proll and his daughter similarly exchange no words—in life they had long since ceased communicating with one another. An invalid seeks forgiveness and a renewal of friendship with Proll, but he finds only the indifference of their last years and thus cannot free himself of guilt. Thus, like the characters in Sartre's Huis clos, the figures are condemned to eternal captivity with a preestablished, unchanging set of companions. In Triptychon, these are comprised of those, and only those, whom they had encountered during life. “Hier lernst du niemand kennen, den du nicht schon kennst,” Katrin comments in the second scene (97).⁹ The problem of communication inherent in the invalid's regret: “Warum haben wir uns nicht ausgesprochen” (88), is expressed again in this work, as in so many of Frisch's works, by reference to letters. Thus an unmailed letter serves to symbolize the invalid's failure to contact Proll during his life (90). Francine's crumbled-up drawing, a communication without words, which Roger carried in his pocket, also reflects a failure to verbalize their relationship satisfactorily. Mention is made only of one letter which Katrin had received from Proll and which had influenced her life, although he himself no longer recalls it.

Each of the figures remains at the age and with the mind set he had at the time of his death. Thus Proll appears as an old man, whereas his father, who had died at a much earlier age, is presented as a younger man. Yet for his father, Proll remains a boy who never learned how to cast his fishing reel properly. Not only does the father again endeavor to teach his now much older son, but he also reiterates his earlier verdict anew: “Er wird es nie lernen” (46). Just as his utterances indicate that he has not altered his opinion of his son's abilities to fish, they also demonstrate his retention of other “images” which reveal that his prejudice against others, such as the Jews (59), has endured. The discrepancy between audience expectations, based upon the visual appearance of the two figures which reflects their age at the time of death, and the relationship between them which is confirmed by their conversations, accentuates that relationship and its continuing but static nature.

Katrin and Klas, once married, relive the trauma of their breakup, each recalling their life together in terms of their own perceptions. Katrin, who had married him to escape her life as a model, remembers only his obsession with orderliness and his continual criticism of her (59 ff.), and this aspect dominates in the scenes in which she interacts with him. Although still compulsively picking up after her in after-death, Klas, on the other hand, insists their relationship could have continued. His recollection of pleasant hours spent together in the British Museum, however, is offset by background sounds of his annoyed house cleaning, acoustical reminders of her recollection of that period. His puzzled reaction: “Das ist alles, Katrin, woran du dich erinnerst?” (69), and his comments to the pastor: “Ich weiß, … man liebt einen Menschen, so wie er ist, oder man liebt nicht. … Was kann Katrin dafür, daß Unordnung mich melancholisch macht! Katrin ist anders. Herr Pastor, ich habe mir Mühe gegeben” (70), are themselves evidence of the continuing presence of the differences in attitude and perception on which this relationship had foundered.¹⁰ Although Klas recognizes that Katrin is different than he is, he cannot understand that Katrin draws the consequences from the irreconcilability of their lifestyles: “Sie hat trotzdem auf Scheidung bestanden” (70).

The theme of image making, so dominant in Frisch's oeuvre, is touched upon by the attitudes of Xaver, Jonas, and Klas toward Katrin. Each of the men sought to confirm his view of her in his interaction with her and in conversation with the others, especially in the face of different assessments. Thus Jonas tells Xaver: “Du hast sie geliebt als das Mannequin, das deine Idee von Emanzipation vorzuführen hat. Wenn jemand anders als du sie überzeugt hat, so hast du gezweifelt an ihrer Intelligenz, du kannst nicht glauben, daß Katrin selber denkt” (81). The scene reveals each of the men caught in the attempt to reestablish or relive his relationship with Katrin. She, meanwhile, engages in conversation with Proll, who had befriended her earlier and whose help she had sought in the face of her personal quandaries. She appears able to recognize the fallacy of the others' perception of her, but not to form her own identity. She accordingly summarizes her relationship with Xaver: “es bleibt, daß wir einander nicht erkannt haben” (88).

The question is raised here, as in Nun singen sie wieder, whether one has really lived. Thus Xaver, echoing Benjamin, asks “Warum leben die Leute nicht?” (48). Proll answers the question “haben Sie gelebt” with “O ja—manchmal” (95). A few, such as Proll's widowed mother, are satisfied with their lives (83); others wish they could obliterate all memory of their life. Thus Katrin remarks: “Ich möchte schlafen, ich möchte nie gelebt haben und vor allem nichts wissen—nur schlafen” (79).¹¹

The final Bild presents only a single encounter, that of Francine and Roger, who met at Proll's funeral some twenty years earlier. Not only were their lives marked by that meeting and the relationship which began there, but their subsequent fate was already foreshadowed in their first conversation. There, while discussing the possibility of life after death, Francine posed the unanswered question: “Haben Sie schon einmal einen Menschen verloren, den Sie geliebt haben wie keinen anderen?” (16), and Roger mentioned the possibility of his own suicide: “wenn ich mir eine Kugel in den Kopf schieße” (16)¹² The setting now is Paris, the location of their last encounter some ten years prior. Since then Francine had died of cancer, and Roger had married, had a child, and been divorced. Obsessed with the memory of their relationship and the trauma of its dissolution, he had returned to Paris and is “reliving” that painful hour. The chronology of the incidents, which can be deduced from the conversations of the characters, is itself not central to the scene nor significant in the structure of the work, which, although it utilizes the sequence of events which occurred during the lives of the figures, grants the temporal dimension no importance in the portrayal of the reality beyond the grave.

It is in Francine's and Roger's conversation, composed of fragments of earlier conversations and arguments, that the difficulty of human relationships and the pain of their failure is revealed most clearly and most sharply. Like Katrin and Klas, neither can change the past nor alter their own perceptions of themselves or each other. Their relationship, however, appears more intense, because neither has achieved any distance from the conflicts or the anguish which characterized their association during life. Although Roger believes he has gained some insight into his life and into their relationship in the years since their last encounter, he is unable to share them with her, to alter any aspect of their former relationship, and thus to ameliorate the continuing pain of that failed relationship. Neither can he escape her criticism of him, spoken years earlier, which had become for him both verdict and life sentence: “Du hast nie jemand geliebt, dazu bist du nicht imstande, Roger, und du wirst auch nie jemand lieben” (139). His plea to her—“sag was du damals nicht gesagt hast. Was du später gedacht hast. Was du heute sagen würdest. Was uns von unsrer Geschichte erlöst” (134)—remains, and must remain, unanswered. Without solace, or hope of solace, he raises a pistol to his head and fires. Only when no shot is heard, does it become clear that this incident, as well as the fragmented conversation which preceded it, is being “relived” in the realm of the dead. For Roger, it is a reenactment and a reexperiencing of his mental encounter with Francine on the eve of his suicide, and proof of the continuing intensity of his involvement with his past. Thus, although most critics interpret the suicide as taking place within the staged presence of the third Bild, there are textual indications that the scene between Francine and Roger is, like the conversations and encounters between the figures of the second Bild, a repetition of an earlier event. Roger's conversation with the predeceased Francine is presented here as a dialogue, since it is now being repeated in the realm of the dead. While the situation recalls and seems to echo the encounter between the Prolls in the opening Bild, completing in a sense the cycle begun there, it differs by permitting the audience to be privy to the words and thoughts of both individuals. As such it represents an intensification of the conditions presented in the first Bild. Both Francine and Roger are among the dead, caught in the web of their painful and unresolved relationship and forced to utter again the words of their past, to suffer anew the agony of their heartache. The final words of the drama: “Das also bleibt” (139) testify to the force and continuing impact of that broken relationship.

The repetitive nature of human existence on both sides of the grave is underscored by a series of devices. The cyclical nature of time and the natural world is indicated by the recurring twittering of birds,¹³ a twittering which repeatedly evokes the comment “wieder April” from a participant. The “neighbor,” engrossed in playing his recorder, falters in the same passage and repeats the identical error time after time.¹⁴ The clochard has no interest in watching the pilot playing ball with the child, for he recognizes it as simply a repetition of a previous action. It is a phenomenon, which he summarizes with the word “Kodachrome!” (96)—merely a reproduction of an event which had previously taken place. He then explains: “Die spielen nicht Ball, Herr Pastor, sie haben Ball gespielt, und was gewesen ist, das läßt sich nicht verändern, und das ist die Ewigkeit” (97). The view that even in life everything has already been experienced and is but a repeat performance is also expressed by an incident recalled by Proll's mother. As a small boy, Proll wanted to eat something “was es auf der Welt gar nicht gibt” and in frustration over that impossibility and the laughter of his mother and the saleswoman, stamped his feet and cried (82-83). The scene echoes the search for originality or authenticity, for experiences which had not been experienced or described by others, a recurrent theme in Frisch's work.

The clochard,¹⁵ an actor before becoming a derelict, has a similar function to that of “der Andere” in Frisch's Die Chinesische Mauer and to other incipient narrator figures in Frisch's dramas, and at times seems to express the greatest insight into the human condition as it is depicted by Frisch. The clochard moves across the stage, finding quotations from the various roles he had performed during his life on the stage which are, or appear to be, appropriate to the situation at hand. Thus, where others repeat the words of their own earlier conversations, he cites the literary masters of the past, thereby indicating the continuity and consistency of man's nature and experience through the ages and consciously evoking their previous literary expression.¹⁶ He himself had died while drunk, and he attributes his drinking to his insight into life and death. He insists, for example: “Nämlich ich habe gewußt, was uns erwartet, ich habe es gewußt …” (47).

Perhaps most striking in the comparison with Nun singen sie wieder is the change in Frisch's personal stance and the emotional nature of the message conveyed by the two plays. The fervency of Frisch's philosophical, ethical stance against prejudice based upon nationality and fanned by international armed conflict which undergirds his earlier work is missing, but gone too is the underlying, though tentative hope that man could indeed change, that man could devise for himself a life with different standards. Triptychon, in contrast to that earlier optimism, presents a view of life, or rather of life after death, in which even the dead are given no opportunity for change or growth. The work focuses on the difficulty, perhaps even futility, of human relationships, and reveals the accompanying pain and frustration, which, experienced in life, continue as well after death. The incipient optimism of the early work Nun singen sie wieder, in which individuals could still learn in the realm of the dead, could gain an understanding of the essence of life which had escaped them during their lifetime, and could indeed experience new life and new insight into themselves and into the nature of their existence, has been replaced by a resignation tinged with cynicism. Here death is not a chance for a new life, and growth beyond the grave is an empty promise. There is a relentlessness in the manner in which life after death is portrayed as a purgatory of past shortcomings and stagnation, a purgatory in which the individual remains caught in the pattern of his own behavior, perceptions, and memories. Even the interest in the living exhibited by the dead in Our Town and in Nun singen sie wieder is gone. The dead in Triptychon expend no thought on the still-living. They, like Sartre's figures in Huis clos, are concerned only with themselves and with their own past. Just as the figures in life dreamed of those with whom their relationships had been problematic (the invalid, for example dreams of Proll and Jonas of Katrin), they are drawn to them in this realm as well, and the unresolved problems of the past continue to haunt them.

Unlike the experiences of the downed airmen, whose perceptions change and who in their new state gain in awareness and come to realize what is truly important in life, or those of the German soldier who is given the chance to do penance, to come to terms with his own guilt, and perhaps to seek comfort and even forgiveness, the characters in this later work are given no chance to develop, to correct past errors, or to make amends for past actions, no chance to heal or be healed. There is no opportunity for change, no escape from the routine of their past errors, the pain of those failed interactions and the knowledge of their own shortcomings and failures. In this realm of the dead, man is condemned to repeat the errors of his own imperfect existence for all eternity, without hope of redemption, reeducation, or release. He remains forevermore caught in the pain and frustrations of his life on earth.¹⁷

Triptychon is not without social criticism, but it is oblique and secondary to the work's concerns. With the exception of the interest in the role of woman in contemporary society, which appears in the conversations involving Katrin,¹⁸ the social criticism of the work revolves around a series of “accidental deaths.” Mention is made of eleven Turkish workers killed by faulty scaffolding because someone had wanted to save money on its construction (42). Xaver and his companions did not die “fürs Vaterland” (55), the explanation proffered by the pastor, but rather were killed in an avalanche while executing a senseless disciplinary action, because their commanding officer, misinterpreting their concern and ignoring their knowledge of mountain conditions, ordered them to cross a dangerous slope “ohne ihn—zwecks Übung im Gehorsam” (55). The convict died in prison a year before his scheduled parole because he was thought to be simulating an injury, and because it was Saturday and the doctor wanted to go sailing (59). Jonas was fatally wounded in a civil disturbance by shots fired into the crowd at random—by the “neighbor,” a former police officer. A firm believer in the precept “Ordnung muß sein,” the neighbor feels no guilt and, faced with the death of the demonstrators, avoids the question of responsibility by reiterating the limitation of his own authority: “Ich bin Adjunkt, ich habe keinen Schießbefehle zu geben,” even while admitting there were times, “daß man froh ist um Befehle.” The question, “ob die Richtigen getroffen werden in so einer Situation,” does not trouble him: “Das weiß kein Mensch. … Das weiß nur Gott” (93).

The question of life and life after death, raised already in the text of the opening scene of Triptychon, continues to dominate much of the conversation on stage. The scenes among the dead themselves both illuminate and belie the views of death expressed by the various figures. Roger, who had spoken during the funderal services, states with reference to Proll: “Ein Leben nach dem Tod, daran hat er nicht geglaubt” (14), and the pastor remarks to Proll's widow: “Die Wahrheit ist die Wahrheit, auch wenn Ihr verstorbener Gatte sie nicht erkannt haben mag. Er wird sie erkennen, Frau Proll, das ist meine Gewißheit” (17).¹⁹ While Roger asserts his faith in eternity: “Ich bezweifle nicht, daß es die Ewigkeit gibt,” he also insists: “daß es ein menschliches Bewußtsein ohne biologische Grundlage nicht gibt.”²⁰ For him, life after death is “die Ewigkeit des Gewesenen” (15-16). The clochard comes to a similar conclusion in his description of the dead:

… die Toten betteln nicht. Sie fluchen nicht einmal. Sie pinkeln nicht, … sie saufen nicht und fressen nicht, sie prügeln nicht, … sie ficken nicht—sie wandeln in der Ewigkeit des Vergangenen und lecken an ihren dummen Geschichten, bis sie aufgeleckt sind

(49)

The clochard's final words underline this perception: “Mein Gedächtnis ist aufgebraucht, die Rolle meines Lebens spielen jetzt andere, und langsam verleiden die Toten sich selbst” (99). These views, however, stand in contrast to that of the pastor, who proclaims:

Es wird kommen ein Licht, anders als wir es je gesehen, und eine Geburt ohne Fleisch, anders als nach unsrer ersten Geburt werden wir sein, weil wir gewesen sind und ohne Todesfurcht werden wir sein, geboren in Ewigkeit

(17)

He reiterates this position, which he had espoused in life, even when confronted with life in the realm of death (100). His utterance then, however, is countered by Katrin's blunt statement which follows: “Die Ewigkeit ist banal” (100). It is she who most succinctly and directly describes the reality of the existence of the dead as portrayed in the work: “Es geschieht nichts, was nicht schon geschehen ist. … Es kommt nichts mehr dazu. … Was ich denke, habe ich schon gedacht. Was ich höre, das habe ich gehört” (33); “Wir können alles noch einmal sagen, und es ändert nichts” (44); and: “Wir sagen uns, was wir schon einmal gesagt haben. … es kommt nichts mehr dazu” (85). Katrin, who has also reached the view that existence is constituted by nothing but repetition, when confronted by another person, frequently chooses to remain silent—and she explains her silence in those terms: “Ich habe verstanden. … Daß wir uns nur noch wiederholen” (45). Similar is Roger's analysis of the situation: “[D]ie einzelnen Ereignisse unsres Lebens, jedes an seinem Platz in der Zeit, verändern sich nicht. Das ist ihre Ewigkeit” (16).

The presentation of the realm of the dead in Triptychon tends to substantiate the views of Katrin and Roger, yet the temporal dimension of the work places the greatest weight on the final state of mind for each individual. Past events have a reality only to the degree that they have remained unresolved at that point in time. Events which were no longer troublesome are no longer recalled into the present of that timeless existence. It is perhaps this aspect of Frisch's portrayal of the realm of the dead which is most grim. While both Klas and Robert seem to maintain expectations which have no chance of fulfillment, so that their anxiety and frustration remain unabetted, Proll and Katrin offer the only source of solace—resignation. In this world after death, the only relief appears to be the realization of the inescapability of the situation, and the acceptance of its inalterability. Unlike Sartre, where the figures continue to resist and struggle and thereby maintain their claim to existence, here the only hope is the gradual acknowledgment of the inevitability of eternal repetition. With it comes a certain stability—“das also bleibt” (137); the mistaken hope for any ultimate change is eliminated, security exists only in the absence of change or the unexpected, the absence of anything new which might require thought or reaction. Thus, although Proll's view is a nihilistic one: “Hier gibt's keine Erwartung mehr, auch keine Furcht, keine Zukunft, und das ist's, warum alles in allem so nichtig erscheint, wenn es zu Ende ist ein für allemal” (95), the finality of life which it represents does promise the solace of an end, not only to expectation, but also to fear, as well. So, too, can Katrin's assessment be understood as reassurance: “langsam weiß man es.” These words, which she repeats twice after her insights cited above: “Wir können alles noch einmal sagen, … es ändert nichts” (44, 85), also echo the position espoused by the figures after death in Wilder's Our Town, as well as those in Nun singen sie wieder, as they progress toward a gradual understanding of the nature of life. As in these works, the need to live life more fully, more thoughtfully, and more successfully is shifted to the living, where the opportunity for a richer, better life still exists, even though there is no assurance that the message will be heeded and the opportunity seized.

Notes

1. Frisch saw the 1939 production of Wilder's Our Town in the Schauspielhaus in Zürich and is generally perceived as having been significantly influenced by Wilder's works and theatrical practices. Peter von Matt, “Max Frischs mehrfache Hadesfahrten,” Neue Rundschau, 89 (1978), 599 ff., and Walter Schmitz, “Zu Max Frisch: Triptychon. Drei szenische Bilder (1978),” in Max Frisch. Aspekte des Bühnenwerkes, ed. Gerhard P. Knapp (Bern: Lang, 1979), pp. 414-15, cite the relationship to Our Town; and Manfred Durzak, “Max Frisch und Thornton Wilder. Der vierte Akt von ‘The Skin of Our Teeth,’” in Frisch: Kritik—Thesen—Analysen, ed. Manfred Jurgensen (Bern: Francke, 1977), 97 ff., pursues the Frisch-Wilder relationship, especially with regard to Frisch's Die Chinesische Mauer.

   Other authors and works have also been cited in relationship to Triptychon, including Sartre, Pirandello, Strindberg and Beckett. Cf. Gerhard P. Knapp, “‘Daß wir uns nur noch wiederholen.’ Jean-Paul Sartre und Max Frisch: Notizen zur literarischen Tradition,” in Aspekte des Bühnenwerkes, 437 ff.; Jürgen H. Petersen, Max Frisch (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978), p. 181; Matt p. 603, p. 414; and Michael Butler, “Reflections of Morality: Max Frisch's Triptychon,” German Life and Letters, 33 (1979), 69 ff.

2. Thornton Wilder, “Our Town” in Three Plays (Banton Pathfinder edition) (New York: Harper, 1972), p. 63. Subsequent page references to this Banton edition will be indicated in the text.

3. Triptychon (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981). Page references in the text are to this edition. For a discussion of the work's reception, cf. Schmitz, pp. 401 ff.

4. Butler refers to Proll's appearance as a “concrete hallucination” of his widow (p. 68).

5. Interestingly enough, critics have tended to ignore her charges and to see in her the typical stereotype of the nagging wife. Thus Butler speaks of her “arid self-justification” (p. 68) and her “moribund monologues” (p. 69), and Petersen says of her: “Sie … geht auf in Selbstgerechtigkeit und Selbstmitleid” (Petersen, “Frischs dramaturgische Konzeptionen,” Aspekte des Bühnenwerkes, p. 54) and describes her as “klagend, anklagend, rechthaberisch” (Frisch, p. 178). In Petersen's view, she treats Proll “gar nicht als individuelles Gegenüber, als Gesprächspartner, sondern redet nur—wie eh und je—auf ihn ein.” Proll's departure is less a confirmation of her charges than a justifiable action as he silently turns his back on “seiner ihre starren Ansichten und ihre Vorwürfe wiederholenden Witwe” (Frisch, p. 178).

6. Cf. Butler, who states: “A bare stage indicates the time as the ‘cruellest month,’ April—a repetitive and mocking spring” and who refers to the play's “‘eternal,’ emotionless Easter” (Butler, p. 69).

7. Thus Proll answers the question, “Warum fischen Sie gerade hier?” with the response: “Hier bin ich aufgewachsen. Und zur Schule gegangen. Hier hat es Forellen gegeben. … Hier haben wir Indianer gespielt. Hier bin ich ins Gefängnis gekommen” (37).

8. His lament, “er fragt nicht einmal, wie ich heiße” (77), is also reminiscent of that of the prisoner in Frisch's Graf Öderland, who similarly noted that he had been treated as if he had no personal name, no identity beyond that of “prisoner” (Stücke I [Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1969], 378).

9. Here Frisch returns to a view of life after death which predates his work on Nun singen sie wieder (where new contacts are made after death). As Matt has pointed out, in Frisch's 1943 “Skizze” (first published in Atlantis Almanach 1944 and later integrated into his narrative Bin oder Die Reise nach Peking [1945]), the dead can hear only those they heard during life (p. 602).

10. The passage recalls Frisch's long concern with that theme. Frisch often emphasizes the impossibility of a mutual memory in his works, cf. Stiller, Montauk, and Blaubart.

11. The clochard's citation of the familiar quotation from Hamlet: “‘Sterben! Schlafen—vielleicht träumen—’” (82), which he continues on pp. 86-87: “‘Schlafen! Vielleicht auch träumen! Ja, da liegt's: Was in dem Schlaf für Träume kommen mögen,’” however, is designed to question the validity of that assumption and to raise the fear of “dream” as a reliving of experiences.

12. Here, as elsewhere in Frisch's oeuvre (cf. Graf Öderland or Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie), the spoken word subsequently assumes reality.

13. Acoustical sounds, such as those of twittering birds and a flushing toilet, are frequently employed by Frisch in this work to supplement and to accentuate the conversation of the figures on stage. Of particular significance is the sound of the Te Deum being played on a record (69), which occurs in the middle of the play in the second Bild, as Schmitz has noted (p. 416).

14. Frisch similarly employed a pattern of recurring errors in music in Biografie (1968) to underline the repetitive nature of Kürmann's experiences and his inability to alter his thinking or correct his behavior.

15. Schmitz calls the clochard Frisch's “Sprachrohr” (403) and “der scheinbare Spielleiter und ‘Conferencier’” (416); Knapp refers to him as “eine seltsame Mischung aus epischer Figur und Beckettschem Landstreicher” (445-46); Butler perceives him as “essentially a parody of the artist, the Poet-Seer, ‘der unbehauste Mensch’” (70); and Christoph Burgauner describes him as the work's “intellektuellste, funktionalste und darum auch körperloseste Figur” (“Ein perfektes Glockenspiel,” Frankfurter Hefte, 34 [1979], 78).

16. This function is not noted by Butler, who states that the clochard's “sentiments are as secondland as the lives of other characters around him appear to have been” (p. 70), or by Schmitz, who comments: “obschon er als einziger das Bedürfnis hat, die Situation zu kommentieren, … letzten Endes bleibt auch die zutreffende Erkenntnis steril, solange sie den richtig erkannten Gesetzen selbst unterliegt. Der Clochard, ehemaliger Schauspieler, beschreibt seine Rolle als Zyniker in seiner Rollensprache. Der Gesprächszerfall ist total” (p. 416).

17. This feature has led critics like Petersen to speak of the work as representing “eine Dramaturgie der Invariation” (in contrast to Frisch's earlier “Dramaturgie der Permutation, der Möglichkeiten” [Biografie]) and to describe it as expressing “Trauer über das verlorene Dasein, über den Verlust des permanent im Wandel befindlichen, dem Menschen die eigene Veränderung ermöglichenden Lebens” (“Frischs dramaturgische Konzeptionen,” p. 53, p. 56). Manfred Jurgensen similarly notes: “Frischs Bühnenwerk endet mit einer Dramaturgie des Todes. Ihre Statik erfaßt auch die spielerische Probe: sie gefriert zu szenischen Bildern, die nur noch zitieren und einmalige Begebenheiten wiederholen können.” He also describes Frisch's figures as “statisch” and concludes that Frisch “mit diesem Stück sein dramatisches Verstummen inszeniert hat.” Jurgensen, “Die Welt auf Probe. Stichworte zum Drama Max Frischs,” Aspekte des Bühnenwerkes, p. 26.

18. Not only is the issue of woman's role in contemporary society raised by her and through her, but also the question whether woman has a language of her own. On one occasion, Xaver tells Katrin: “Die Sprache, die du brauchst, ist eine Männersprache.” Claiming “es [gibt] eure Sprache noch nicht …, die Sprache der Frau,” he insists: “die Frau, wenn sie sich aussprechen will, [muß] denken … wie der Mann: unter dem Zwang dieser Syntax, die der Mann sich geschaffen hat” (43-44).

19. It is one of the ironies of the work that the pastor, not Proll, appears lost and out of place in this realm of the dead and has problems adjusting to it. As Katrin notes, “Es ist sein Amt gewesen, die Leute zu vertrösten auf das Leben nach dem Tode, und er kann's nicht fassen, daß er hier kein Amt mehr hat” (84). Only Joachim Müller sees the figure of the pastor positively: “Nur dem jungen Pastor … wird vom Dichter zuletzt vergönnt, mit einem tröstlichen Wort von der Wiedergeburt die fahle Schattenwelt ein wenig zu lichten.” (“Der Dichter Max Frisch und seine neuen Werke,” Universitas, 35 [1980], 172).

20. Ironically, the events of the play also prove Roger wrong in this assumption and give an answer to his rhetorical question: “Wie soll mein Bewußtsein sich erhalten nach dem materiellen Zerfall meines Hirns?” (68). As Butler has pointed out, the third Bild puts Roger's opening remarks in perspective by revealing “the ineffectuality of his initial, brash confidence once confronted by experience” (p. 68).