Professor Bernhardi

Professor Bernhardi (1912) is one of the best known plays written by the Viennese dramatist, short story writer and novelist Arthur Schnitzler. It was first performed in Berlin at the Kleines Theater in 1912, but banned in Austria until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a result of World War I.

Plot

Professor Bernhardi is a Jewish physician in a cooperative private clinic. A young woman in his care is dying of sepsis following an abortion. After weeks of suffering, she fails in a euphoric state of consciousness, not yet being aware of her true condition referring her very low chance to survive.

In this situation a priest summoned by a nurse wishes to give her last rites, but Berhardi refuses him admission in order that the girl may not be made aware that she is about to die, because then she would fail back into her state of despair and suffering. While Berhandi and the priest are arguing, the girl dies, having been first told by the nurse that the priest is there.

A press campaign and public outcry, reflecting the intense anti-semitism of the time, causes Bernhardi to be forced from the clinic he helped found, and sentenced to two months in prison.

Before this, a man with considerable influence among judicial officers open to bribes tries to make a shady deal with Bernhardi: he might avoid being charged if he would give preference to a Christian physician instead of Dr. Wenger, a Jewish physician preferred by Bernhardi because of his professional abilities. Bernhardi refused this, losing his post and going to prison.

However, the imprisonment is not severe, and the play ends with a philosophical discussion of the case between a relaxed Berhardi and a friend following Bernhardi's release.

Assessments

In the words of the Oxford Companion to German Literature "the work is Schnitzler's best comedy [sic], penetrating in its satire and serene in its ending." It is regularly performed in the German speaking world and occasionally in other countries to this day.

A London revival by Mark Rosenblatt for the Oxford Stage Company at the Arcola Theatre in 2005, starring Christopher Godwin in the title role, received universal acclaim.

John Peter in the Sunday Times 10 April 2005, wrote: "Here [Schnitzler] is revealed as a political dramatist of the first rank, whose forensic passion and even-handed observation equal Shaw at his best...Mark Rosenblatt's production has the drive and tension of a thriller."

References

• Text of the play
• Oxford Companion to German Literature, ed Henry and Mary Garland, Oxford University Press (1987) ISBN 0198661398
• The Stage review by John Thaxter of the Oxford Stage Company revival at the Arcola Theatre, London, March 2005 [1]