Urbach, Reinhard

New York. 1973. Ungar. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket With A Small Piece Missing From The Top Back. 0804429367. Translated from the German by Donald Daviau. 202 pages. hardcover. Cover: Tim Gaydos. keywords: Literature Austria Germany Translated Drama Literary Criticism. FROM THE PUBLISHER - ARTHUR SCHNITZLER, dramatist, physician, student of depth psychology, devoted his life to portraying the Vienna of the early 1900s—the Vienna not only of the cafe literary circles and of Freud, but also of the final years of the monarchy, and of festering anti-Semitism. As Schnitzler saw it, this Vienna was a world of splendor and exuberance that concealed deception, hypocrisy, and decay. He was able to endow these portrayals with a validity transcending their time. Most Americans associate Arthur Schnitzler with the French film La Ronde, a sophisticated but distorted version of the author's Hands Around (Reigen in German). In a series of scenes, Schnitzler here introduced a chain of lovers who, according to the rules of the game, meet, converse, make love, and go their separate ways—a masterful satire of a world in which people sleep together without intimacy, remain lonely when not alone, dissemble, and contradict themselves in the next scene. In his well-known earlier play cycle Anatol, where each character steps into and out of a role, Schnitzler also subtly explores the psychology of his actors in the theater of the world. It was too light and superficial a reading of such works that led critics to undervalue Schnitzler as only a writer of casual, frivolous escapades rather than the profound dramatist and thinker whose plays have overtones of bitter irony. Despite his important serious play Professor Bernhardi, Schnitzler's reputation suffered a decline by the time of his death in 1931, a decline that the author of this work attributes in large part to the pervasive anti- Semitism of Schnitzler's critics, well documented here. This new study of Schnitzler reflects renewed interest in the writer. In this World Dramatists title, the reader will find not only the literary aspect of Schnitzler's plays but, importantly, the theatrical aspects as well. How were his plays produced? Who acted in them? Which pro- ductions have been important theatrical events? How did such theater reviewers as Eric Bentley and Clive Barnes evaluate these performances? How do leading German-language critics view Schnitzler's works? Urbach offers much material hitherto inaccessible in book form. inventory #31836 ISBN: 0804429367.