Peter Handke, Publikumsbeschimpfung und andere Sprechstücke [Offending the Audience]

Piet Defraeye (University of Alberta)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Peter Handke’s first produced play,

Offending the Audience

[original title

Publikumsbeschimpfung

, also translated as

The Audience Abused

and as

Public Insult

], premiered in June, 1966, as part of the inaugural “Experimenta” arts festival in Frankfurt. Initially Handke, who had recently gained a reputation as an experimental novelist with his début novel

Die Hornissen

[

The Hornets

, 1966], had a hard time finding a willing and suitable forum to have his theatrical endeavour produced. The prominent publishing house Suhrkamp had published the play, together with two other so-called “Sprechstücke”, but no theatre was apparently interested in mounting it, which makes it one of those very rare occasions where a playscript is published before its first staging. Suhrkamp contacted over…

1600 words

Citation: Defraeye, Piet. "Publikumsbeschimpfung und andere Sprechstücke". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 December 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=20936, accessed 28 March 2024.]

20936 Publikumsbeschimpfung und andere Sprechstücke 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.