Wolfgang Bauer (writer)


Wolfgang Bauer was an Austrian writer best known as a playwright who, particularly in his younger days, was regarded as an enfant terrible by the Austrian cultural establishment.

Life and career

Bauer was born in Graz, Styria. His breakthrough play was Magic Afternoon in 1967, in which he portrays four youths who interrupt their lazy and boring afternoon by unmotivated outbreaks of violence and aggression. After two more successes, Change and Gespenster, Bauer's plays became increasingly surreal and experimental. Bauer though resisted any labelling by academia and critics alike until his death. Most of his plays during 1967 and 1990 were translated into English by Martin Esslin, remembered for coining the term Theatre of the Absurd. In the late 1970s and early 1980s San Francisco's Magic Theatre performed a play of Bauer's almost every season. In 1993 his play Tadpoletigermosquitos at Mulligan's was premiered at New York's Ohio Theatre.
Wolfgang Bauer was a heavy smoker and drinker. After a series of cardiac operations, he died in his native Graz of heart failure. His friend, the composer Kurt Schwertsik wrote Ein Kleines Requiem partly for him.

Works

Bauer's plays have been translated into 24 languages and have been performed in 35 countries. This is a complete list of his published works in German:

Plays