Hin und Her

“Unwanted person!”, says the border official and sends Mr. Havlicek over the bridge, back to where he came from. But he has just been expelled from there and the guards at that border station won’t let him pass either. And so, Mr. Havlicek is forced to remain on the bridge, in between two identities and nations.

Ödön von Horváth based his comedy on an idea that is as simple as it is disturbing. The central setting is the connecting bridge over a border river that separates two countries. On the one side, the border is guarded by Thomas Szamek. The guard on the other side is called Konstantin. In the no man’s land in between, there is Ferdinand Havlicek. Following the bankruptcy of his drug store, he has been expelled from the country in which he has lived for more than 50 years. He wants to cross the bridge to get back to his country of birth, but is denied entry.

With his 1933 work “Hin und Her”, Ödön von Horváth wrote a grotesque farce about the absurdity of excessive border policies. Crossing back and forth over the bridge, Havlicek meets various people, all of them comical in their own way: fake nuns, real gangsters, fighting spouses and the heads of government of both countries, who are unable to reach an agreement on the opening of the border.

Horváth’s basic idea is captivating: The bridge is an ideal setting and the border exists not only in a geographic sense but also in our minds. In a Europe marked by increasing isolationism, the text gains an eerie relevance and inspires new ways of thinking today just as it did back then.

Ödön von Horváth (1901–1938) was considered an “unwanted person” ever since the Nazis seized power in Germany and was forced to renew his Hungarian citizenship in Budapest. This experience inspired him to write the border-crossing play “Hin und Her”.

Director Claus Tröger, who primarily works in Austria, Germany and Italy, has for instance staged the European premiere of “Dry Powder” at the Salzburg State Theatre as well as the impressive productions of “Lehman Brothers” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” at the Kammerspiele.

Duration: 1h 50 min

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