Judgment Day - Almeida Theatre

6
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
“ON DEMAND”
Ödön von Horváth
‘I was born on 9th December 1901,
and it was in Fiume on the Adriatic, at
4.45 in the afternoon (4.30 according
to another report). When I weighed
twenty-two pounds I left Fiume and
loafed about partly in Venice and partly
in the Balkans, and experienced all
sorts of things, among others the
murder of HM King Alexander of
Serbia along with his better half. When
I was four foot tall I moved to
Budapest and lived there for half an
inch. There I was a keen visitor to
numerous children’s playgrounds and
was conspicuous in a rather
disagreeable way because of my
dreamy and mischievous personality.
At a height of about 5’0½” Eros awoke
in me, but initially without causing me
any bother – (my love of politics was
already quite apparent at that time).
My interest in art, especially in the
classics of literature, stirred relatively
late (at a height of about 5’7½”) but it
only became an urge from 5’11½”, not,
it is true an irresistible one, but there
all the same. When the First World War
broke out I was already 5’6”, and when
it ended I was 6’ (I shot up very quickly
during the war). At 5’7” I had my first
proper sexual experience – and today,
now that I have long since stopped
growing (6’1”), I think back with tender
nostalgia to those portentous days.
Now I only grow outwards it is true –
but I can’t tell you any more about that,
because I’m still too close to myself.’
Ödön von Horváth, biographical note
‘auf Bestellung’ – ‘on demand’.
Translated by Ian Huish.
Peter Handke on Ödön von Horváth and Bertolt Brecht
And people will say
In far away blue days
It will become clear
What is false and what is true
What is false will perish
Although it rules today
What is true shall come –
Although it dies today
Horvath died in Paris on the evening
of June 1, 1938, when a tree limb
broke off during a thunderstorm,
hitting him on the head and killing
him instantly. One of the items
found in his pocket was a cigarette
pack with this poem written on it.
Translated by Ian Huish.
‘Brecht’s plays are interesting to me only as formal experiments, illusory yet moving fairy tales which show me a simplicity
and order, that doesn’t exist. I prefer Ödön von Horváth, his disorder and uncontrived sentimentality. The confused phrases
of his characters frighten me – the prototypes of malice, of helplessness, of confusion in a particular kind of society are
shown up much more clearly in his work. And I like those insane phrases, which show the leaps and contradictions in man’s
consciousness and which are otherwise only to be found in the works of Chekhov and Shakespeare.’
From Materiallien zu Ödön von Horváth, ed. Traugott Krischke, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970. Permission has been sought.
Photos: Bridget Jones