Ferdinand Bruckner

Bruckner, Ferdinand, pseudonym of Theodor Tagger (Vienna, 1891-1958, Berlin), studied at Vienna University and the Sorbonne. In 1923 he founded the Renaissance-Theater in Berlin in his real name and directed it until 1928. His first publications were Expressionistic poems (Der Herr in den Nebeln, 1917). These and the novels Die Vollendung des Herzens of the same year, and Auf der Straße (1920), appeared under his own name. His first success came with the plays published under his pseudonym, beginning with Krankheit der Jugend (1928, first performed in Hamburg and Vienna, 1926). The ‘illness of youth’ turns out to be the promiscuous life of a group of male and female medical students who view the future in utter disillusionment. Die Verbrecher (1928, first performed in Berlin and Vienna in that year) deals savagely with the incongruence of justice and law. It is also an impressive play technically (Simultantechnik), with the stage in Act I subdivided into seven separate rooms, which are separately illuminated or obscured as the fragmented action requires; in the second act it is similarly divided into four court rooms, a common room, and a corridor. Other plays of this early period were Te Deum (1929) and Die Kreatur (1930). With Elisabeth von England (1930) Bruckner achieved his greatest international success, interpreting history in the light of contemporary ideas and psychology and further exploiting the theatrical techniques used by E Piscator. This was followed by Timon. Tragödie vom überflüssigen Menschen in fünf Aufzügen (1932). In 1933 Bruckner emigrated to Austria, and from 1936 until 1951 lived in the USA. He spent his last years in Berlin. Die Rassen (1935), set in a German university in the spring of 1933, attacks National Socialist Germany, notably anti-Semitism, and represents an early landmark of Exilliteratur. Heroische Komödie (1945) has as its principal characters Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, and Bernadotte. The later tragedies Der Tod einer Puppe and Der Kampf mit dem Engel (both 1956 and both in verse) made little impact. Among Bruckner's other plays are a version of Die Marquise von O. (1933, see Kleist, H. von), Simon Bolivar (1945), Fahrten (1949, retitled Spreu im Wind, 1952), Pyrrhus und Andromache (1951), Früchte des Nichts (1952), on post-war youth, Clarissa (1956), and Das irdene Wägelchen (1957). Gesammelte Werke appeared in 1956, 1988, and 1990.

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Ferdinand Bruckner (born Theodor Tagger, 26 August 1891, Sofia, Bulgaria – 5 December 1958, Berlin) was an Austrian-German writer and theater manager.

Life

Bruckner's father was an Austrian businessman and his mother a French translator. After the separation of his parents, he spent time in Vienna and Paris, and in Berlin where he began to study music. However, impressed by the expressionist literary scene in Berlin, in 1916 he moved away from music and devoted himself to poetry. In the following years, he published several poetry collections and in 1917 he began the literary magazine Marsyas with texts from authors like Alfred Döblin and Hermann Hesse. In 1922, he founded the Berlin Renaissance Theater, whose leadership he gave to Gustav Hartung in 1928.

In 1929 and 1930 he released the pieces Krankheit der Jugend (Sickness of Youth) und Elisabeth von England (Elizabeth of England) using the pseudonym Ferdinand Bruckner. After the success of these works, he revealed their authorship, although he also changed his name itself in 1946.

In 1933 he emigrated to Paris and worked on the anti-fascist play Die Rassen. In 1936, he moved to the United States, although he achieved little success there. Twenty years after his flight from Germany in 1953 he returned to Berlin where he worked as an advisor to the Schiller Theater. He died in Berlin on December 5, 1958.

Works

• Der Herr in den Nebeln, 1917
• Krankheit der Jugend, 1929
• Die Verbrecher, 1929
• Elisabeth von England, 1930
• Die Rassen, 1933
• Simon Bolivar, 1945
• Pyrrhus und Andromache, 1951

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