''Kaspar'' is a play written by Austrian playwright

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...

. It was published in 1967. It was Handke's first full-length drama and was hailed by

Max Frisch Max Rudolf Frisch (; 15 May 1911 – 4 April 1991) was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity, individuality, responsibility, morality, and political commitment. The use of irony is a significant featur ...

as the "play of the decade". It depicts "the foundling Kaspar Hauser as a near-speechless innocent destroyed by society’s attempts to impose on him its language and its own rational values."

Plot summary

''Kaspar'' is loosely based on the story of

Kaspar Hauser Kaspar Hauser (30 April 1812 – 17 December 1833) was a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Hauser's claims, and his subsequent death from a stab wound to his left breast, sparked much debate an ...

. "Raised in a dark hole, at 17 he wandered into a 1824 German town knowing only a single sentence and became a scientific curiosity: a nearly-adult human without language and external influences, a tabula rasa upon which society and its scientific teachers could write with impunity."

Major Themes

''Kaspar'' is about language and its ability to torture. In this play Handke "allows us to listen differently and to reflect on how language is forced upon us by a society where conformism is the norm and received speech an almost tyrannical exploitation of the individual." It is also a play that suggests individuals are bound to negate themselves under the pressure of the societies that they live in. "What Kaspar experiences on stage can happen daily: The need or desire to conform, to observe and imitate someone else’s words and actions, to assert oneself and at the same time, negate oneself." Individuals can also invent themselves using the language. In ''Kaspar'', Handke writes: "Already you have a sentence with which you can make yourself noticeable . . . You can explain to yourself how it goes with you . . . You have a sentence with which you can bring order into every disorder . . ." Handke himself wrote in the prologue to the play: "The play ''Kaspar'' does not show how IT REALLY IS or REALLY WAS with Kaspar Hauser. It shows what is POSSIBLE with someone. It shows how someone can be made to speak through speaking. The play could also be called speech torture." One critique summarised the theme of ''Kaspar'' thus: "the inherent authoritative power of language itself to shape, twist, expand, delimit, and mediate human experience, the ultimate tragicomic story of socialization and civilization.

Kaspar in Iran

Kaspar is a play by

Mohsen Moeini Mohsen Moeini (born 27 March) is an Iranian author and director. His work mainly centers around his philosophical and historical preoccupations. As well as directing his own plays, he has directed plays by foreign authors such as Peter Handke a ...

was the dramaturgist and director of the play, produced by

Negin Mirhasani Vahed Negin Mirhasani Vahed is an Iranian artist manager, producer and costume designer and the first female theater producer in Iran. She has also been responsible for the costume design of a variety of plays and television series. Work TV series * ...

. This play went on stage in Av Hall. Its run was extended three time and it was widely praised by the audience.

References

{{Authority control 1967 plays Plays by Peter Handke German-language plays Kaspar Hauser

Plot summary

Major Themes

Further reading

Kaspar in Iran

References