Talk:Rolf Hochhuth
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Does anyone know whether Hochhuth was a citizen of free Germany or communist Germany during the time he published his earlier plays? Knowing this may help one to understand the controversies relating to them.
The play Soldiers was not actually banned in the UK, as theatre censorship had ended before the play was available for production. The production of the play at the NT was cancelled, though, due to political controversy. It was soon produced in a commercial, West End production. I have clarified this in the article. Those interested should see the documentation appendiced in Laurence Olivier's autobiogrpahy, Confessions of an Actor.Jmc29
[edit] Awful article
"Hochhuth is best known for his 1963 drama Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel (The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy), a controversial theater work because of its criticism of Pope Pius XII's role in World War II. Though of little historical value and credibility, it is acknowledged as a work of considerable literary merit by some, while publisher Ed Keating and journalist Warren Hinckle, who organized a committee to defend the play as a matter of free speech, considered it "dramaturgically flawed." (If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade, 1974.) [1].
---> Why so negative?
---> "Though of little historical value and credibility" -- in fact Hochhuth's success changed the public perception of Piux XII, not to mention what we know today.
---> The text is a drama, not a "play"
---> There are other important layers: byzantinism vs. heroism, and of course the irony of modern religion: God's deputy is unable and unwilling to stop nazi crimes.
It was first produced in the United Kingdom by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London in 1963, and revived by the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in 1986. It will receive only its third British production at the Finborough Theatre, London, in August 2006.
---> UK centric
The play was seen by commentators as an attempt of Hochhuth to transfer the guilt of his own parents to other, more notable, persons, thus trying to acquit his own people and relatives from consent to Nazi crimes.
---> A very superficial ad hominem reading.
---> What special guilt of his parents?
[edit] Hannah Arendt about "The Deputy"
Hannah Arendt has written a very interesting essay entitled "The Deputy: Guilt by Silence?"
- Eric Bentley, Editor, Storm Over 'The Deputy' (New York: Grove Press, 1964),
Pages 85-94. I am going to quote her, her judgement about the quality of the drama.
- Austerlitz -- 88.72.28.91 18:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
