44. Heat Lightning of a New Era

At the performance of Gunnar Heiberg's “King Midas”
at the Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna

What we did not dare to hope for after the experiences we had with the Deutsches Volkstheater in the first six months of its existence has now come true. We owe this institute a theatrical event the likes of which we have not seen in Vienna for a long time. On April 22, "King Midas" by Gunnar Heiberg was performed for the first time. We don't know what influence we have to thank for this, but it would be interesting to find out. For in view of the boundless lack of understanding with which the Viennese critics have received this "play", in view of their almost touching ignorance as to what is actually at stake here, we cannot but confess that we long to know who among the leading factors of the German people was able to recognize that for all Heiberg's dramatic ineptitude, for all the imperfection in the drawing of the characters, the weather light of a completely new age can already be felt in the work. The majority of our educated people seem to have just enough intellectual power to understand Ibsen, the last offshoot of a culture in decline. But this power is no longer sufficient to follow the man who makes the first - albeit still somewhat feeble - attempt to give artistic expression to a new moral world order. What is the message that Ibsen proclaims to the world? For the most part, none other than that of the contradiction between our reality and moral ideas, the impossibility of organizing life according to them. But what he regards as such "moral ideas" are those of an old, worn-out culture, they are the "old iron of morality" and are therefore often outcast from life by necessity. Only the immature youth and those older people who have never understood that in our classical period the moral content of life of an outdated time has found a residue-free artistic expression that cannot be surpassed, only these two groups of educated people could fall prey to that unholy cult of Ibsen, which is nothing but the result of the most blatant lack of education. Ibsen recognized that there is a terrible disproportion between real life and moral values, but he lacked the insight that the fermenting society of our day can no longer be measured by the ethical standards of the past, but is facing a transformation of the entire moral world order. "Good and evil" in the traditional sense are outdated concepts that are in urgent need of "re-evaluation". The question now is: what do we have to adhere to in such a "re-evaluation"? There can only be one answer: life itself. And thus we have recognized that moral value judgments must be based on life and not, as Ibsen would have it, life must be based on moral value judgments. A moral principle becomes a disastrous force the moment it stands in the way of the flourishing development of life. This is the basic idea of Heiberg's play. A young widow, Mrs. Holm, has received from her husband on his deathbed the confession that he was never unfaithful to her, not in deed, not in thought. This thought has been the happiness of her life since her husband's death. All her happiness came from it. But that confession was a lie. No one knows it but the editor Rarmseth, to whom a woman who was once a maid in Holm's house confessed that Holm had once had sexual relations with her. The editor Rarmseth appears as a representative of virtue in the form of the truth, the unvarnished, purely factual truth. And he acquaints Mrs. Holm with the true state of affairs. This drives her mad and she is lost to life. Thus the "truth" has destroyed a life that could have owed its happiness to a "blissful error". If critics believe that Heiberg's drama is nothing more than a polemic against

Ibsen, this is only a small fraction of the truth. The play is the first act of a new era, the first blow to the often rotten edifice of morality. Viennese critics have once again shown that they are completely incapable of judging what is better without prejudice. For once, a large coin - albeit poorly minted - has been issued, and the critical small change of our journalists was not enough to redeem it. On this occasion we cannot fail to make special mention of the actress playing Mrs. Holm, Miss Sandrock. The way in which she takes on and portrays the role, quite apart from anything else, is a sight to behold. She captivates our interest anew with every nuance. Whoever has seen her in "King Midas" will hardly doubt that we have in her a rising star of the first magnitude. No less interesting is Mr. Mitterwurzer as Ramseth. It takes a special artistry to play the indomitable nature of this man with unity. One believes from moment to moment that it must break now, this unyieldingness that sees disaster after disaster emerge from the fanaticism of truth. But Ramseth remains "true" until he has driven the poor victim of his "truth" out of his mind. Mitterwurzer is particularly adept at making this inflexibility clear to us.