Read Online Kaspar and Other Plays by Peter Handke - Free Book Online Page B

Elsewhere on stage there is another table, smaller, lower, with only three legs. Center stage is empty. Two chairs stand elsewhere, each with a different backrest, one with a cushion, one without. Somewhere else is a sofa with room for almost five persons. Half the sofa (from the vantage point of those sitting in the center of the auditorium) should be behind the wings, thus indicating backstage. Elsewhere there is a rocking chair. Somewhere else, a broom and shovel, one of them bearing the clearly discernible word STAGE or the name of the theater. Somewhere else, a wastepaper basket with the same inscription. On the large table, but not in the middle, stands a broad-necked bottle with water in it, and next to it a glass. At the back of the stage is a stylish closet with a large key in the lock. None of the props has any particularly unusual characteristic that might puzzle the beholder. In front, in the center of the apron, is a microphone.
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    The first person in the audience to enter the theater should find the stage lighted softly. Nothing moves on stage. Every theatergoer should have sufficient time to observe each object and grow sick of it or come to want more of it. Finally, the lights are slowly dimmed as usual, an occurrence that might be accompanied by, for example, a continuous muted violin tone (“The tone of the violin is more ample than that of the guitar”—Kaspar). The theater is dark throughout the play. (While the audience comes in and as they wait for the play to begin, this text might be read softly over the microphones, and repeated over and over.)

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    I
    Behind the backdrop, something stirs. The audience detects this in the movement of the curtain. The movement begins on the left or right of the curtain and continues towards the center, gradually becoming more vehement and more rapid. The closer the person behind the curtain comes to the center, the greater the bulge in the curtain. What at first was only a grazing of the curtain becomes, now that the material is obviously pliable, an attempt to break through. The audience realizes more and more clearly that someone wants to get through the curtain onto the stage but has not discovered the slit in the curtain. After several futile tries at the wrong spots—the audience can hear the curtain being thrashed—the person finds the slit that he had not even been looking for. A hand is all one sees at first; the rest of the body slowly follows. The other hand holds on to a hat, so the curtain won’t knock it off. With a slight movement, the figure comes on stage, the curtain slipping off it and then falling shut behind it. Kaspar stands on stage.
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    II
    The audience has the opportunity to observe Kaspar’s face and makeup: he simply stands there. His makeup is theatrical. For example, he has on a round, wide-brimmed hat with a band; a light-colored shirt with a closed collar; a colorful jacket with many ( roughly seven ) metal buttons; wide pants; clumsy shoes; on one shoe, for instance, the very long laces have become untied. He looks droll. The colors of his outfit clash with the colors on stage. Only at the second or third glance should the audience realize that his face is a mask; it is a pale color; it is life-like; it may have been fashioned to fit the face of the actor. It expresses astonishment and confusion. The mask-face is round because the expression of astonishment is more theatrical on round, wide faces. Kaspar need not be tall. He stands there and does not move from the spot. He is the incarnation of astonishment.

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    III
    He begins to move. One hand still holds the hat. His way of moving is highly mechanical and artificial. However, he does not move like a puppet. His peculiar way of moving results from his constantly changing from one way of moving to another. For example, he takes the first step with one leg straight out, the other following timorously and “shaking.” He might take the next