Praise of the Small Countryside

Praise of the Small Countryside

On the performance of a new dialec= t play by Franz Pretz in Glogowatz

<= /span>It is probably so in most cases that dialect literature presupposes local literature. While it is direc= ted linguistically at a tightly circumscribed therefore at a very concrete readership, it must compulsorily also pertain to this area thematically, mu= st remain credible and first thereby justify the use of the dialect becau= se it belongs completely to its region.&= nbsp; There seldom are translations from the dialect and in the end also o= nly of interest for the same local area. One could therefore, with a small dash of amusement, maintain that dialect literature must be scenically “national” (i.e. German, Romanian, Hungarian), in the course= of which the region can be made smaller more easily than enlarged. With us, it seldom decreases to one village; of course in individual cases (Sachsen and Landler for instance), = it even divides this.

What We Call = Home

<= /span>We reflect upon the dialect plays which have been produced in the Banat in recent years; thus we find that this most difficult literary genre is closely bound up with the introductory observations offered. The “national” element here refers not only to speech and topic but= to a large extent and naturally also to the costumes, the stage set, indeed ev= en to the immediate play, to wanting to express joy, sorrow or surprise in that way. This feeling is transmit= ted here un-programmed from author to actor and from stage to hall. It is noteworthy that these plays = were performed successfully as a rule. This fact should be taken into consideration in every critical analy= sis of this subject.

<= /span>Franz Pretz considered this feeling down to detail in his dialect play “Die richtichi Leit ufm richtiche Platz” (The Ri= ght People at the Right Place) performed first last Saturday and Sunday successfully. Above all, he wrote a play for the Glogowatzers, for his compatriots, among whom he lives, in fact lives gladly. One feels unequivocal= ly through the performance lasting three hours that he wants to be here at home among these people and in this tangible situation of the immediate present because only both human society and the present together make up that which we could call home. And that distingui= shes this play from similar attempts in recent times that it wants to be based firmly enough in the world experienced, rejects from the onset a no longer existing, already legendary Swabian world which usually still behaves in a familiar manner so readily.

<= /span>Pretz does not want just to entertain, therefore to amuse or agitate; with him, t= he atmosphere is not a goal but a means to an end. Everything which we find with similar plays (with which the audience= is reached), we also find all of that with Pretz: e= arthy humor, real environment, naive fable.= But Pretz places everything in larger contexts which he dresses in t= he small dialect scenery only to make them understandable. Here, the Glogowatzer author has s= ome advantage even over both local dialect plays which are on the program of the Temeswarer German theater at the moment. And if until now it was a particul= arly worthwhile observation that our dialect literature, coming to life again, is for a good part still made by non-authors, then it must now be worth something to us t= hat this attempt at updating our repertoire for the amateur stage comes so dire= ctly from itself.

Re-minting in= the Tangible

<= /span>Admittedly, Pretz is no debutant; plays by him were repeatedly performed with pleasure = in our village. However, he has remained an author who chances to see his opinion go up to first rank in his own village. The educator (Pr= etz works at the public school in Glogowatz as a physics teacher) prefers measurable results. For insta= nce, that it was successful in securing a regular playing time of two performanc= es a month for the Temeswarer professional stage in Glogowatz.

<= /span>What the author wants to tell this time is not new. There already is railing against t= he emigration to the cities among the Banater Swabians for a hundred years. New with Pretz is that to him it i= s not about the preservation of patriarchal conditions in the process but about t= he fulfillment of a social duty. The idea is also not original to have a veterinarian earn his bread in the city as a small writer and bring to his senses in the end through the attac= k of the grandfather and the chance incidents.&= nbsp; It is almost provocative however the way the author knows how to bri= ng his concern to the audience. = In the process, he starts at a newspaper article in which there is complaining that trained experts refuse to work in the country. Perhaps, one would have taken all = the reflections starting up with a confirming but in other ways apathetic ̶= 0;So ist das halt” (that’s just the way it= is), had the author not already in the first act worked toward making his audien= ce receptive to it while he turns the problem back to the individual, returns = to the world of experience of every one of them.

<= /span>It is no Johanni (the feast of St. John); the father celebrates= his name day, but he celebrates it quietly and alone with his wife because the “Nescht is leer” (nest is empty). Son and daughter live in the city = and have become “imperious.” Nevertheless, the son, scarcely five minutes after he is in the house again, has himself shown his father’s pigs, because somewhere a longi= ng remains for another life and the sore spot of an unfulfilled job. And when Pretz has the grandfather calculate what the education of a student costs, then that happens with a r= ural objectivity; there can only be correct evaluation for the 50,000 Lei if they are then re-minted to many corresponding metric hundredweights (220 lb each) of wheat.

All Are Invol= ved

<= /span>With this topic, Pretz actually leaves the Glogowatzer region. The problem is universal, but= it also does not refer less to Glogowatz on that account. And it is the concern of the = author to make it understandable that everything concerns us somewhat, that nobody= is outside the events. The use o= f the dialect, for a good part, goes back to this concern. Pretz, however, goes much father i= n his back reference to locale; he calls people and streets by name, therefore has his spectator find his way in a very tangible area; he puts a typical Swabi= an farmer’s room on the stage, genuine down to the lace cloths, the curtains, down to family pictures on the walls.

<= /span>Never even in parts should the thought arise: That does not concern us. The contribution of the actor= s, whom Pretz (he also directs and plays the grandfather) has be Glogowatzeris= h in speech, costume and role interpretation, is also commensurate. The performance is not at a loss.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The Bäsl (diminutive for a female cousin, but generally used as a form of address) Wawi (Sophia Hack) was credible down to the detail, and the tipsy Vetter (male cousin, but used like Bäsl) Baschtl (S= epp Kern) went around as unconcerned with his role as if he had always stood in= the footlights and not as a joiner in the Arader lathe works. Martin Kessel as Vetter Hans and Elisabeth Janson as Bäsl Lene added to the play splendidly; the younger actors (Anna Kern, Franz Porst, Barbara Weiss [Wess?], Johann Schilb) as we= ll as the remaining cast (Sepp Engelhardt, Hans Wieser, Hanse Merle and others) endeavored to keep pace.

<= /span>If one witnessed the two full halls on the two evenings, then one will have to recognize that with his play Pretz has achieved what he would want to achieve. Which place the play= in our dialect literature and the performance in our popular art movement will occupy, is not even so important for the time being (although both stand up= to a test with regard to that). = It is more important that in a village like Glogowatz a dialect play taking up a whole evening was able to be written and performed in front of a thousand s= pectators. Here, an entire village is involve= d, quite directly. There were la= rger school children who worked as ushers, there was a woman who literally had h= er room cleaned out and put up again on the stage, there were amateur actors w= ho not only played their roles but discussed and not unimportantly wrote down = the play in the end. In this con&= shy;sciousness of joint participation, one certainly looks forward to a performance differently, as if one sits newly-come in the hall with an open notepad. One could literally conclude that = this active witnessing of the theater evening justifies play and purpose first of all. And because of that, we = think it can be built up even much more in Glogowatz.

Franz Herbert

Source:

Daily Newspaper “Neuer Weg, = New Path” (Bucharest) from February 13= , 1970, page 4

English Translation by George P. Bretträger (translator notations in red)