Wolfgang Bauer

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Wolfgang Bauer (March 18, 1941 – August 26, 2005) 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.

Bauer was born in Graz, Styria. His breakthrough play was Magic Afternoon, 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, and his audience increasingly confused, their interest waning. In any case, Bauer resisted labelling by academia and critics alike until his death.

Wolfgang Bauer smoked a lot and was a heavy drinker. After a series of cardiac operations, he died in his native Graz of heart failure.

[edit] Plays

Bauer's plays have been translated into 24 languages and have been performed in 35 countries. This is an incomplete list:

• Der Schweinetransport (1962)
• Maler und Farbe (1962)
• Mikrodramen (1964)
• Magic Afternoon (1968)
• Party for Six (1969)
• Change (1969)
• Silvester oder das Massaker im Hotel Sacher (1971)
• Katharina Doppelkopf und andere Eisenbahnstücke (1973)
• Gespenster (Ghosts, 1974)
• Magnetküsse (1976)
• Memory Hotel (1980)
• Pfnacht (1982)
• Woher kommen wir? Was sind wir? Wohin gehen wir? (1982)
• Herr Faust spielt Roulette (1987)
• Totu-wa-botu (1992)
• Die Kantine (1993)
• Die Menschenfabrik (1996)
• Café Tamagotchi (2001)
• Foyer (2004)

Wolfgang Bauer also wrote screenplays, poems, essays, and an epistolary novel, Der Fieberkopf (The Feverhead, 1967). He also frequently directed his own plays.