Botho Strauss

Botho Strauß (December 2nd 1944 with Naumburg -) is, with Heiner Müller, the dramatic author German contemporary more played in Europe.

Biography

After studies of literature, history of the theater and sociology (its family was established in FRG in 1950), it is critical with the review Theater Heute, then, at 26 years, it works in Schaubühne of Berlin under the direction of Peter Stein, as a playwright. It translates or adapts Ibsen, Labiche, Gorki, but quickly it starts to write its own parts.

After 1975 it is binding to the public by his frescos on loneliness, enfermement, the situations of incommunicability. The distance between its parts, novels, news, is not very sensitive, and its novels were often adapted to the theater.

Botho Strauss conceives in 1977 the Trilogy of re-examining especially for the troop of Schaubühne; it is a brilliant success. The choice of Berlin like decoration of the majority of its texts makes also this city a metaphor of human loneliness.

Botho Strauss expresses less the social movements than the anonymity of the people in the modern society. The characters are often the victims of their disappointed hopes. Despair leads only to one unhappy clearness. Botho Strauss is reflection and revealing of its time.

In 1989 Botho Strauss receives the Prix Georg-Büchner, the highest distinction literary in Germany, to be " managed to transpose on scene the disorientated life of our société".

He writes: " When (the theater), when it uses the actors to bring back most remote to an inconceivable proximity, the theater succeeds acquires a disconcerting beauty, and the present gains moments which supplement it in a manner insoupçonnée".

Strauss was revealed in France by Claude Régy which assembles successively the Trilogy of re-examining (1978), Grand and small (1982), the Park (1986). Luc Bondy created Time and the room in Schaubühne in 1989. Patrice Chéreau proposed of it a new setting in scene in Odéon in October 1991, in an adaptation of Michel Vinaver. The insane one and his wife this evening in Pancomedia was created with Berlin in 2001 in a setting in scene of Peter Stein. During the season 2001-2002 this part is with the poster of three theaters in different settings in scene: with Munich (Dieter Dorn), with Bochum (Mathias Hartmann), with Vienna (Dieter Kiesing).

The most recent part, Unerwartete Rückkehr ( unexpected Return ) was created by Luc Bondy in March 2002 in Berliner Ensemble.

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