“Das Stück könnte auch ‘Sprechfolterung’ heißen”. La manipolazione linguistica nel Kaspar di Peter Handke e gli albori del teatro postdrammatico

Abstract

Peter Handke’s Kaspar continues the Austrian reflection on the crisis of language, which finds an emblematic expression in Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Der Brief des Lord Chandos, but from a new point of view: The crisis of language is presented not so much as a mere consequence, but as a main cause of the crisis of the individual. The article aims at highlighting the strong connection between Kaspar – defined by Handke as an example of “linguistic torture” – and the development of the postdramatic German speaking theatre.