Friedrich
Dürrenmatt

born Jan. 5, 1921, Konolfingen, near
Bern, Switz.
died Dec. 14, 1990, Neuchâtel
Swiss playwright, novelist, and essayist
whose satiric, almost farcical
tragicomic plays were central to the
post-World War II revival of German
theatre.
Dürrenmatt, who was educated in
Zürich and Bern, became a full-time
writer in 1947. His technique was
clearly influenced by the German
expatriate writer Bertolt Brecht, as in
the use of parables and of actors who
step out of their roles to act as
narrators. Dürrenmatt’s vision of the
world as essentially absurd gave a comic
flavour to his plays. Writing on the
theatre in Theaterprobleme (1955;
Problems of the Theatre), he described
the primary conflict in his
tragicomedies as humanity’s comic
attempts to escape from the tragic fate
inherent in the human condition.
His plays often have bizarre
settings. His first play, Es steht
geschrieben (1947; “It Is Written”), is
about the Anabaptist suppression in
Münster in 1534–36. In it, as in Der
Blinde (1948; “The Blind Man”) and
Romulus der Grosse (1949; Romulus the
Great), Dürrenmatt takes comic liberties
with the historical facts. Die Ehe des
Herrn Mississippi (1952; The Marriage of
Mr. Mississippi), a serious play in the
guise of an old-fashioned melodrama,
established his international
reputation, being produced in the United
States as Fools Are Passing Through in
1958. Among the plays that followed were
Der Besuch der alten Dame (1956; The
Visit); Die Physiker (1962; The
Physicists), a modern morality play
about science, generally considered his
best play; Der Meteor (1966; The
Meteor); and Porträt eines Planeten
(1970; Portrait of a Planet).
In 1970 Dürrenmatt wrote that he was
“abandoning literature in favour of
theatre,” no longer writing plays but
working to produce adaptations of
well-known works. In addition to plays,
Dürrenmatt wrote detective novels, radio
plays, and critical essays.