Gustav A. "Geza" Silberer (1 December 1876 – 5? 8? April 1938) was an Austrian journalist and author of Jewish extraction[1] born in Werschetz who wrote in German under the pseudonym Sil-Vara.
He was a journalist of long standing on the staff of Neue Freie Presse . A contemporary critic (who described him as a "literary non-entity") wrote of his book Englische Staatsmänner that he appeared to have spent some time in London and had close relations with the leading political figures he describes. The Vossische Zeitung "Aunt Voss" informed readers that they would be "agreeably surprised" to find the likes of Asquith, Curzon, Viscount Grey and Churchill treated "not as enemies but as men".[2]
In 1912, while living in London, he and Charles H. Fisher adapted The Playboy of the Western World as Der Held des Westerlands[3] and had it published by Georg Müller and performed at Max Reinhardt's Kammerspiele, Berlin, at the Neue Wiener Bühne in Vienna and at the Stadttheater in Münster.[4]
His play Ein Tag: Lustspiel in Drei Akten, adapted by theatre director Philip Moeller as Caprice, had a successful run in 1929 at New York's Theatre Guild, then elsewhere.[5]
His play Mädchenjahre einer Königin about the young Queen Victoria was the basis of several movies of the same name in 1936 and 1954[6]
Several of his books are still in print: Ein Wiener Landsturmmann (ISBN 9781161145694) and Ein Tag: Lustspiel in Drei Akten (ISBN 9781168352613)
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Silvaraweg, a street in Döbling, Vienna was named for him in 1966.[7]