Kaspar and Other Plays (15 page)
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I can hear the logs comfortably crackling in the fire, with which I want to say that I do not hear the bones crackling comfortably. The chair stands here, the table there, with which I mean to say that I am telling a story. I would not like to be older, but I would like for much time to have passed, with which I mean to say that a sentence is a monster, with which I mean to say that speaking can help temporarily, with which I mean to say that every object becomes ticklish when I am startled. I say: I can imagine to be everywhere now, except that I cannot imagine really being there, with which I mean to say that the doorknobs are empty. I can say: the air snaps shut, or: the room creaks, or: the curtain jingles, with which I mean to say that I don't know where I should put or leave my hand, while I when I say that I don't know where to put my hand mean to say that all doors tempt me only under the pretense that they can be opened, which sentence I would like to use in the sense of: my hair has gotten into the table as into a machine and I am scalped: literally: with each new sentence I become nauseous: figuratively: I have been turned topsy-turvy: I am in someone's hand: I look to the other side: there prevails an unbloody calm: I cannot rid myself of myself any more: I toss the hat onto the meathook: every stool helps while dying: the furnishings are waterproof: the furniture is as it ought to be: nothing is open: the pain and its end come within sight: time must stop: thoughts become very small: I still experienced myself: I never saw myself: I put up no undue resistance: the shoes fit like gloves: I don't get away with just a fright: the skin peels off: the foot sleeps itself dead: candles and bloodsuckers: ice and mosquitoes: horses and puss: hoarfrost and rats: eels and sicklebills:
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Meantime, the other Kaspars are producing an infernal noise with their various tools which they have applied to the objects they have brought with them and to Kaspar 1. They are giggling, behave
like crowds in crowd scenes in plays, ridicule Kaspar 1 by speaking in the same rhythm as he, etc. Kaspar 1 had also produced a file and makes similar noises by scraping with the file against the microphone while he is speaking his sentences. But now, all at once, an almost complete silence sets in. The Kaspars merely flap their arms about a little and gesticulate. They wriggle a little. They snuffle. Then Kaspar says:
like crowds in crowd scenes in plays, ridicule Kaspar 1 by speaking in the same rhythm as he, etc. Kaspar 1 had also produced a file and makes similar noises by scraping with the file against the microphone while he is speaking his sentences. But now, all at once, an almost complete silence sets in. The Kaspars merely flap their arms about a little and gesticulate. They wriggle a little. They snuffle. Then Kaspar says:
| Goats and monkeys | With that, the curtain jolts a little toward the center, where the Kaspars are wriggling. The jolt produces a shrill sound. |
| Goats and monkeys | With an even shriller sound, the curtain jerks a little farther toward the middle. |
| Goats and monkeys | With an even shriller sound, the curtain jerks still farther toward the middle. |
| Goats and monkeys | With an even shriller sound, the curtain moves still more toward the center. |
| Goats and monkeys | With the shrillest possible sound, the curtain makes one final jerk toward the center, where the Kaspars are still wriggling a little. The curtain slams into them the moment Kaspar 1 says his last word: it topples all of them. They fall over, but fall behind the curtain, which has now come together. The piece is over. |
The speak-ins (
Sprechstücke
) are spectacles without pictures, inasmuch as they give no picture of the world. They point to the world not by way of pictures but by way of words; the words of the speak-ins don't point at the world as something lying outside the words but to the world in the words themselves. The words that make up the speak-ins give no picture of the world but a concept of it. The speak-ins are theatrical inasmuch as they employ natural forms of expression found in reality. They employ only such expressions as are natural in real speech; that is, they employ the speech forms that are uttered
orally
in real life. The speak-ins employ natural examples of swearing, of self-indictment, of confession, of testimony, of interrogation, of justification, of evasion, of prophecy, of calls for help. Therefore they need a vis-Ã -vis, at least
one
person who listens; otherwise, they would not be natural but extorted by the author. It is to that extent that my speak-ins are pieces for the theater. Ironically, they imitate the gestures of all the given devices natural to the theater.
Sprechstücke
) are spectacles without pictures, inasmuch as they give no picture of the world. They point to the world not by way of pictures but by way of words; the words of the speak-ins don't point at the world as something lying outside the words but to the world in the words themselves. The words that make up the speak-ins give no picture of the world but a concept of it. The speak-ins are theatrical inasmuch as they employ natural forms of expression found in reality. They employ only such expressions as are natural in real speech; that is, they employ the speech forms that are uttered
orally
in real life. The speak-ins employ natural examples of swearing, of self-indictment, of confession, of testimony, of interrogation, of justification, of evasion, of prophecy, of calls for help. Therefore they need a vis-Ã -vis, at least
one
person who listens; otherwise, they would not be natural but extorted by the author. It is to that extent that my speak-ins are pieces for the theater. Ironically, they imitate the gestures of all the given devices natural to the theater.
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The speak-ins have no action, since every action on stage would only be the picture of another action. The speak-ins confine themselves, by obeying their natural form, to words. They give no pictures, not even pictures in word form, which would only be pictures the author extorted to represent an internal, unexpressed, wordless circumstance and not a
natural
expression.
natural
expression.
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Speak-ins are autonomous prologues to the old plays. They do not want to revolutionize, but to make aware.
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Peter Handke
In translating the invective at the end of
Offending the Audience,
I translated the principle according to which they are arrangedâthat is, I sought to create new acoustic patterns in Englishârather than translate each epithet literally, which would only have resulted in completely discordant patterns.
Offending the Audience,
I translated the principle according to which they are arrangedâthat is, I sought to create new acoustic patterns in Englishârather than translate each epithet literally, which would only have resulted in completely discordant patterns.
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To the assortment of moral truisms of which the prompters have a choice when they address Kaspar, I have added a number of American platitudes; the imaginative reader will have no difficulty in supplying even more. Certain liberties have also been taken to make Kaspar's rhymes sort of rhyme. In nearly every other respect, these are translations and not adaptations. Peter Handke himself has cut the last sentence in
Self-Accusation
and also Kaspar's final sentence which appeared in the original version.
Self-Accusation
and also Kaspar's final sentence which appeared in the original version.
M.R.
The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Short Letter, Long Farewell
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams
The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays
A Moment of True Feeling
The Left-Handed Woman
The Weight of the World
Slow Homecoming
Across
Repetition
The Afternoon of a Writer
Absence
The Jukebox and Other Essays on Storytelling
English translations copyright © 1969 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
All rights reserved
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Self-Accusation
originally published in German under the title
Selbstbezichtigung,
© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1966;
Offending the Audience
originally published in German under the title
Publikumsbeschimpfung,
© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1966;
Kaspar,
© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1967
originally published in German under the title
Selbstbezichtigung,
© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1966;
Offending the Audience
originally published in German under the title
Publikumsbeschimpfung,
© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1966;
Kaspar,
© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1967
Published in Canada by HarperCollins
CanadaLtd
CanadaLtd
First published in 1969 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
This edition first published in 1989 by Hill and Wang
This edition first published in 1989 by Hill and Wang
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Designed by Kay Rexrode
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eISBN 9781466810242
First eBook Edition : January 2012
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Library of Congress catalog card number: 78â103704
Seventeenth printing, 1995
Amateur or professional performances, public readings, and radio or television broadcasts of these plays are forbidden without permission in writing. All inquiries concerning performing rights should be addressed to Joan Daves, 21 West 26th Street, New York, N.Y. 10010
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