A functioning network is something fine, especially when it means a top-class festival like the Murnau Horvath Days arises. Its artistic director Georg Büttel puts it much more poetically, of course. “Friendship and content come together here in a wonderful mix,” he says. Probably true. The Ödön von Horváth Society has been commemorating the namesake every three years since 1998. Always with their own theater productions, readings, talks and cooperation with other institutions, this time under the motto “Trust! Look! Whom?”. People who have a special relationship with both Horváth and Büttel always play a part.
Sebastian Bezzel, for example, known everywhere as Eberhofer Franz from the Rita Falk films, appeared in Murnau in 2001 as the protagonist in Büttel’s first solo version of Horváth’s “A Child of Our Time”. This time, together with the actress Johanna Wokalek, he is creating an evening about the life of the writer, combining texts from letters, postcards and telegrams with excerpts from well-known plays and prose texts (November 12). Bezzel and Büttel know each other from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where they were both born. In 1994, already in Munich, they got together with two other friends to form the cabaret group “Kummerspiele”. When one of the cabaret artists got out, Christoph Süss joined the group. It is logical that the cabaret artist and TV presenter is also represented at the festival, as he regularly moderates the opening gala where the Ödön von Horváth Prize is awarded (11 November).
After Felix Mitterer (2013), Edgar Reitz (2016) and Josef Hader (2019), this year Sir Christopher Hampton receives this award. The British playwright, translator, screenwriter, director and two-time Oscar winner is a profound Horváth expert, translated and adapted numerous Horváth plays for British and American theatre. But he is coming to Murnau for the first time, assures Büttel. Unlike the previous award winner Josef Hader, who is making a guest appearance at the days with his current solo program “Hader on Ice” (sold out). He was also there in 2001, including with a cabaret number about the Paris branch that killed Horváth in 1938. After this deadly event, the author – at least in the literary-musical guest performance of the German Theater in Hungary (November 20) – sits in a waiting room facing heaven and talks to Hungarian contemporaries about God, the world and European wars.
Karl Kraus’ “Last Days of Mankind” completes the program as a collage of scenes.
(Photo: Thomas Bruner)
In reality, the writer lived in Murnau from 1924 to 1933, mostly in his parents’ country house and discovered the role models for some of his characters in the town. The government of Upper Bavaria rejected his application for Bavarian citizenship in 1927, presumably because the 26-year-old Hungarian diplomat’s son could not produce a regular income as a writer. The comedy “Zur Schönen Aussicht” was also made in Murnau, which 15 young people from the Staffelsee-Gymnasium appropriated in a free production (November 5/16).
Since Horváth’s contemporaries also appear regularly at the festival, Karl Kraus’ masterpiece “The Last Days of Mankind” fits well into the concept. Büttel staged the collage of scenes with its wealth of fictional dialogues and authentic newspaper finds last year in the Munich team theater; the performance can be seen twice in Murnau (November 17 and 19).
Not to forget, of course, are the two-part “Horváth Talks”, which scientifically illuminate various aspects of the author’s work. Or the Graphic Novel Live Theater, which undertakes an expedition through three Horváth plays. And much more. It’s best to go and watch.
Dare! Show! Whom? Murnau Horváth Days, November 11th – 22nd, at various venues in Murnau. Info: www.horvath-gesellschaft.de