CALL FOR A HANDKE SYMPOSIUM

- Liebe Drs.Stocker & Raubacher & Mikl & Aichinger, et al,

Ich möchte mich bei Ihnen erkundigen ob die Möglichkeit besteht ein Handke's Symposium in der USA zu unterstützen,und zwar so dass es wahrlich des Dichters und seinem jetzt hinkenden Empfang in der Englischsprachigen Welt entsprechend groß aufgezogen wird, also nicht nur in den kleinkariertenBereichen der Germanistik verbleibt [vide Fußnote].

Ich kenne den Burschen seit seinem Auftritt in Princeton in 1066, das Werk ist groß, wie bei uns allen hinkt es manchmal
an der Person an dem mehr als allzu Affenhaften!
Nachdem ich für Handke seinen Amerikanischen Verlag gefunden und ihn übersetze kam es so, dass er michdann wirklich zu interessieren anfing als ich mich psychoanalytisch in Los Angeles schulte... und sein groesstes
Werk UEBER DIE DOERFER unter ganz besonders stuermischen Umstaenden uebersetz hatte... und jetzt habe ich Verbindung mit vielen Handke
Wissenschaftlern. 

What makes Handke's work important for me and raises it out of the above-mentioned confines is thatit renovates the great tradition of prose writing,Goethe, Stifer, Eichendorf in the German realm, Flaubert, Robbe-Grillet, in English Hardy, Virginia Woolfe, the Joyce of Dubliners, and introduces the filmic element as only a progressive genius could who needed to make contact in that fashion, writing in dream syntax, the grammar of the primary system to put it in Freudian/ Lacanian terms...
and to do so as a virtuous ... as though he was Franz Lizt... I sure didn't think my fifth Beatle was that much of a genius. Handke interest the once Brechtian me because he has completed Brecht's work of creating an anti-Aristotelian catharsis, subliminally, sleight of hand man that he is, in works such as THE RIDE ACROSS LAKE CONSTANCE and THE HOUR WE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT EACH OTHER... thus such a symposium might have one of his great
as yet unpremiered in English plays - THE ART OF ASKING,[whose translation needs serious revision], or Scott Abbott's first rate translation of VOYAGE BY DUGOUT:
THE PLAY ABOUT THE FILM ABOUT THE WAR as a central focus, or, since to organize such an event takes a few years, perhaps his it appears marvelous STILL STORM will have found the proper translator by then.

Zeljko Djukic did a first rate performance of HOUR at his Tutato Theater in Chicago - he is aware of the expense of hiring actors adequate for THE ART OF ASKING. Steve Pearson
did a first rate HOUR at the University of Washington's  School of Drama in the mid 90s; he is now in charge of the theater program at the University of South Carolina.

Seattle and its University would not be a good venue for such a symposium I am afraid. As a visiting scholar for ten years I was unable to drum up interest, even from someone who claimed
to be a Stifter specialist; Herbert Blau who was associated with Jules Irving when RIDE ACROSS LAKE CONSTANCE premiered at Lincoln Center in 1971 had not interest in discussing with
me my rakes progress. When I tried to organize a Handke theater festival toward the late 90s with some left over Handke theater people from the now defunct EMPTY SPACE THEATER, and the
Austrians promised to support this venture to a very considerable hilt, the still chair of the theater department, Sarah Nash Gates,
behind our backs, killed the project - provincialism and philistinism and all its
pettinesses prevail among the local banana slugs. Kurt Beattie now head of A CONTEMPORARY THEATER here, Seattle's own Kaspar, at EMPTY SPACE, made a lot of promises and overtures - these  have come to nothing; so did Richard White's promise at Cornish to seriously consider VOYAGE BY DUGOUT - HE was too busy giving away arts funds for matters that are never heard or seen outside these precincts.

Thus Chicago might be an interesting venue. Yale did Handke'sTHEY ARE DYING OUT in 1979 but have not worked their way into doing far greater work since.

A symposium such as this will also produce an interesting volume of essays that someone might want to publish.
Lots of marvelous Handke's things have not been done by his mediocre US publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux -
which actually is now owned by Holzbrinck!

Wenn Sie mein Resümee betrachten erscheine ich Ihnen vielleicht als Wahloestreicher -  weil ich einige Jahre in  einem alten Kloster in Vornbach am Inn in wahrlich Stifterischen Witikow Zuständen versteckt überlebte
- 1942-1944 - während die Eltern als Wiederstaendler
mit der Gestapo zu tun hatten]
http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.html

Hoping for serious consideration and the start of a conversation
I remain very truly yours, 

 

--  

>
> MICHAEL ROLOFF
>
> http://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref=name
>
> Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society

>
> This LYNX will LEAP you to my HANDKE project sites and BLOGS
>
>  The Hubs, the Navel to Todos Handke!
>
http://handke-magazin.blogspot.com/2010/06/handke-magazine-is-over-arching-site.html