Heldenplatz

When Thomas Bernhard’s final play celebrated its premiere at the Burgtheater in 1988, 50 years after Austria’s “Anschluss” to Hitler’s Germany, it was to become one of the greatest theatre scandals ever seen in Austria, stoked by politicians, churches and, above all, the media. Thirty-five years later, it is an entirely different story: Austria has comprehensively addressed its history and handed the few remaining remnants over to commissions and panels to be settled once and for all. National Socialists no longer exist, although the far-right FPÖ is surpassing the 30% mark in opinion polls, according to corroboratory reports and various media. For this reason, no one will write “Storm ‘Heldenplatz’!” with regard to the premiere announced here, despite some of the journalists responsible for such headlines back then still being active. And because the situation today is entirely different, this gives us the chance to truly celebrate the literary and musical qualities of Thomas Bernhard’s major work. It tells the story of Josef Schuster, a Jewish mathematics professor who returned to Austria with his wife following his emigration, and his family. Because he cannot stop hearing the hordes cheering at Heldenplatz in 1938, and because his old home does not feel like his new home, he commits suicide by throwing himself out the window. No one is better suited to direct this great work than Frank Castorf, who most recently staged new texts by Peter Handke and Elfriede Jelinek and is now paying tribute to the non-Nobel Prize winner Thomas Bernhard.