SOURCE: Hern, Nicholas. “The Ride Across Lake Constance.” In Peter Handke: Theatre and Anti-Theatre, pp. 90-94. London: Oswald Wolff, 1971.

In the following essay, Hern discusses the question of sanity versus insanity in Handke's work The Ride Across Lake Constance, comparing it to previous Handke plays such as Kaspar and My Foot My Tutor.

Handke's second full-length play [The Ride Across Lake Constance] is a critic's dream in that, while clearly re-using certain elements from the author's earlier plays, it equally clearly represents an advance on these plays; but it is also a critic's nightmare in that this advance is into territory almost totally devoid of those landmarks such as logic, consistency, sequentiality, by which a critic would normally find his way. Indeed, nightmare, or dream, is an apt description of the play, by far the most surreal of Handke's creations and reminiscent no longer of the abstract austerity...