Is it a tribute or a reproach that I couldn't help but imagine how I would produce these plays as I read them? Was I imagining the possibilities that the author opened up before me, or trying to imagine how the flaws could be repaired? A little of both, as it turns out. Handke makes no secret of his intention to challenge the audience, rather than to entertain. The obviously titled "Offending the Audience" is not the only example of his gleeful contempt. I wouldn't be surprised if, had I cared to consider critical approaches to this work, they were filled with comparisons and connections to Samuel Beckett, a similarly sneering playwright for whom I have never developed a taste.
And yet the ideas in these plays were undeniably interesting. Fun, even. I thought about different ways to stage the works as I read them, and came up with some rather creative, if I do say so, ways to remove the the voice of a mediocre white male whose pride has been bruised from them and make them enjoyable without diluting them. Neither is it only in the tone of the works that the author is the chief obstacle. It is no surprise that the man who created these diatribes is also something of a controversial figure, and by some measures a genocide apologist. No one else could have possibly been so brazen.
I like brazenness, of course, and I like diatribes. I even like offense and scorn and contempt. They all have their part to play in literature, and perhaps especially on the stage. In this case, however, I wish that they just didn't smell so much like fragile male ego. These were not works of genius, but they were works of incredible gall, and that is at least something.
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