Friedrich Dürrenmatt


Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophical crime novels, and macabre satire. Dürrenmatt was a member of the Gruppe Olten, a group of left-wing Swiss writers who convened regularly at a restaurant in the city of Olten.

Life

Dürrenmatt was born in Konolfingen, canton of Bern, the son of a Protestant pastor. His grandfather, Ulrich Dürrenmatt, was a conservative politician. The family moved to Bern in 1935. Dürrenmatt began studies in philosophy, German philology, and German literature at the University of Zürich in 1941, but moved to the University of Bern after one semester where he also studied natural science. In 1943, he decided to become an author and dramatist and dropped his academic career. In 1945–46, he wrote his first play It Is Written. On 11 October 1946, he married the actress Lotti Geißler.
Dürrenmatt traveled in 1969 to the United States, in 1974 to Israel, and in 1990 to Auschwitz in Poland.
In 1975 he played himself in the film End of the Game.
Dürrenmatt also enjoyed painting. Some of his works and his drawings were exhibited in Neuchâtel in 1976 and 1985 and in Zürich in 1978.
His wife, Lotti Geißler, died on 16 January 1983. Dürrenmatt married another actress, Charlotte Kerr, in 1984.
In 1990 he gave two famous speeches, one in honour of Václav Havel on discovering that he had been spied on for five decades, along with 800,000 of his left-leaning fellow citizens, by the Swiss secret service; the other in honour of Mikhail Gorbachev. Dürrenmatt often compared the three Abrahamic religions and Marxism, which he also saw as a religion.
Dürrenmatt died from heart failure on 14 December 1990 in Neuchâtel.
Since 2000 his works have been exhibited in the Centre Dürrenmatt, part of the Swiss National Library.

Dramatic works

Like Bertolt Brecht Dürrenmatt explored the dramatic possibilities of epic theatre. Next to Brecht he has been called its "most original theorist".
When he was 26 his first play, It Is Written, premiered to great controversy. The story of the play revolves around a battle between a sensation-craving cynic and a religious fanatic who takes scripture literally, all of this taking place while the city they live in is under siege. The play's opening night in April 1947 caused fights and protests in the audience. Between 1948 and 1949 Dürrenmatt wrote several segments and sketches for the anti-Nazi Cabaret Cornichon in Zürich including the short single-act grotesque play Der Gerettete.
His first major success was the play Romulus the Great. Set in the year A.D. 476, the play explores the last days of the Roman Empire, presided over and brought about by its last emperor, Romulus. The Visit is a grotesque fusion of comedy and tragedy about a wealthy woman who offers the people of her hometown a fortune if they will avenge the wrongs done to her. The satirical drama The Physicists, which deals with issues concerning science and its responsibility for dramatic and dangerous changes to the world, has also been presented in translation.
Radio plays published in English include Hercules in the Augean Stables, Incident at Twilight and The Mission of the Vega. The two late works Labyrinth and Turmbau zu Babel are a collection of unfinished ideas, stories and philosophical thoughts.

Selected bibliography

Dürrenmatt's stories in film

Adaptations

His novel, A Dangerous Game was adapted into a Marathi play, Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe by Indian playwright Vijay Tendulkar in 1967. The play has since then been performed in various Indian languages, and made into a film by the same name by Satyadev Dubey. It was also adapted into the 2021 Hindi feature film Chehre.
His play The Visit has been adapted and Indianised into a play called Miss.Meena by Chennai-based theatre group 'perch'. The Visit has also been adapted as a musical by Kander and Ebb.
His play Incident at Twilight has been adapted into a play called Sann 2025 by Piyush Mishra.
In November 2024, Ian McDiarmid adapted A Conversation at Night and An Incident at Twilight under the name Different Truths for BBC Radio Drama on 3. It featured Ian McDiarmid, Jim Broadbent, Michael Moreland and Ian Dunnett Jnr.