A reissue of a comic and tragic play that asks just how much of our life we couldor wouldchange if we got another chance. In this play by Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch, a middle-aged behavioral researcher Kürmann is given the opportunity to start his life over at any point he chooses and change his decisions and actions in matters both serious and mundaneHe could save his marriage, become politically active, take better care of his health, or even change the color of his living room furniture. Despite his intention to apply the wisdom he has acquired with age, Kürmann finds himself inexorably trapped in the same decisions. Ultimately proving fatal, Kürmanns life game interrogates how much of our own path is shaped by seemingly random factors and how much is in fact predetermined by our own limited, conditioned selves. The plays central ideathat our lives are nothing but a self-conscious play with imaginary identitiesis brilliantly captured in Biographys dramaturgical form, setting up a theatre rehearsal as the metaphor for the endless possibilities and variables of the game of life.
Frischs own revised, dramatically heightened version of his play celebrates not only the theatre as a form of self-expression but also the human condition in all its potential and limitations as it showcases both comic and tragic outcomes that define all our lives.
Dramatis Personae:
Hannes Kürmann
Antoinette Stein
Director
Female Assistant
Male Assistant
Max Frisch (191191), was one of the giants of twentieth-century literature, achieving fame as a novelist, playwright, diarist, and essayist. His works include Andorra, Im Not Stiller, A Wilderness of Mirrors, and Man in the Holocene. Birgit Schreyer Duarte is a freelance dramaturge, theatre director, and translator. She has also translated works by Pascal Mercier and Roland Schimmelpfennig.
