From theatrical politics to political theatrics: The evolution of Peter Turrini's dramatic vision (Austria)

Peter Turrini has been a controversial playwright on the Austrian and European stage since the success of his work, rozznjogd, in 1971. Turrini's plays have shocked, confronted and overwhelmed audiences with their examination of the modern Austrian political and social scene. Turrini has been uncompromising in his depiction of a society, in the provinces and in the urban centers, which has lost the ability to allow honest expressions of human emotion. In many plays of his, political and social conditions condemn human beings to a life of inarticulate suffering and isolation. The political element of Turrini's plays is strongest in his early work. As a self-styled Marxist playwright, Turrini has depicted the ills of society as having their origin in a corrupt, capitalist-directed worldview. The desire for property and control has ruined the dream of community and replaced it with a nightmare of cruel and manipulative exploitation. In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of socialist Eastern Europe robbed Turrini of his political model and argumentative approach. Increasingly, his plays became less statements of political urgency than displays of theatricality, retaining within their theatricality a small element of political zeal. As the 1990s wore on, Turrini embraced the theater both as refuge from an increasingly chaotic political world as well as home for what he saw as the last chance for “true” human interaction. In celebrating the traditional theater, Turrini also celebrates the ability of the theater to articulate the human condition in a manner that can no longer be achieved through political engagement. In finding his home in “the Theater,” Turrini expresses both his joy of the stage as well as his frustration of the world outside. With the production of his work, Die Eröffnung in 2000, Turrini has evolved from his earliest attempts to confront the artificiality inherent in any theatrical production. He now accepts the artificial nature of the stage, celebrating it as a singular context for the sincere expression of human nature and human passions.