Der Theatermacher

Recording from the Burgtheater, 1990. A co-production with the Salzburg Festival.

Thomas Bernhard’s "Theatermacher" is set in the dilapidated theater hall of the “Schwarzer Hirsch” inn in Utzbach, a town with exactly 280 residents. There, the former state actor Bruscon intends to stage his “world comedy,” *Das Rad der Geschichte*, whose climax—and prerequisite—is supposed to be absolute darkness. But Bruscon and his troupe are no less pitiful than the inn’s hall: his wife, who suffers from lung disease and coughs constantly; his untalented son, Ferrucio; and his daughter, Sarah, who fails to live up to her father’s expectations. Yet the family members are not only performers but, together with the taciturn innkeeper, also members of the audience—and they are hopelessly at the mercy of the “theater maker”—him and his tirades about the futility of art, the depravity of the state, the inadequacy of the audience, and the fire department’s lack of understanding of art.