Peter Turrini - Die Verhaftung des Johann Nepomuk Nestroy

Reading by Hermann Beil
“None of my exaggerations were as excessive as reality.” (Peter Turrini)

“None of my exaggerations was as excessive as reality.” (Peter Turrini)

In Peter Turrini's novella, the genius poet Nestroy is at the center. He is thirty-two years old, an opera singer, actor, and satirical playwright, and every evening he is celebrated as a comedian by the audience at the Theater an der Wien. His greatest wish is to succeed as an actor in serious roles. However, the public sees him as a buffoon. When he manages to invite the Burgtheater director Johann Ludwig Deinhardstein to the premiere of his new play "The Evil Spirit Lumpazivagabundus,” he jeopardizes his own opportunity by showering the audience, which is behaving restlessly due to a staged conspiracy in the auditorium, with obscenities and insults until he is taken away by the theater police. The audience, however, perceives this as part of the performance.

“Is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy?” This Bernhard motto precedes Turrini's text. 

Peter Turrini – playwright, poet, essayist, screenwriter, actor, outspoken speaker in Heroes' Square, alert contemporary, and tireless advocate for justice – dedicated a novella to Johann Nepomuk Nestroy in 1998, which beautifully narrates how the true Austria emerges in this theatrical genius and remains an immortal part of the flesh-and-blood comedy of this country. For Peter Turrini, Nestroy is a patron saint of theater, who helps bring laughter in all situations.