Jonathan Taylor writes:

I've traveled to Thomas Bernhard's house and met his half-brother, and organized a reading and a panel discussion on him. But I, like most readers of Bernhard on this side of the Atlantic, have never seen any of his plays performed. However, in his native Austria, Bernhard's status derived at least as much from his theatrical work (and behavior) as it did on his novels and other prose. As a young man, he himself trained as an actor, and his assaults on the Austrian state and cultural overclass were primarily acted out, as it were, on the stage, culminating in the 1988 furor over his "Heldenplatz" at Vienna's Burgtheater.

I'll be seeing my first Bernhard play in a couple weeks, when the Toronto-based One Little Goat theater company, directed by Adam Seelig, brings its production of Bernhard's 1986 play "Ritter, Dene, Voss," to New York's La MaMa E.T.C., from September 23 to October 10 (tickets here). I spoke with Seelig recently about "Ritter, Dene, Voss," and how this play's metatheatrical twist is the perfect vehicle for One Little Goat's mission of developing what it calls a "poetic theater." (continued)