SOURCE: A review of Die Berühmten, Vol. 51, No. 3, Summer, 1977, p. 436.

In the following essay, Schlant offers a negative review of Die Berühmten.

Die Berühmten is one of Thomas Bernhard’s four recent plays to deal with the performing arts and artists. The other plays are Der Ignorant und der Wahnsinnige (1972), Die Macht der Gewohnheit (1974; see BA 49:3, pp. 537–38) and Minetti (1976). In Die Berühmten the high life of international opera performers is mercilessly ridiculed. There is no action to speak of in the two Vorspiele and the three scenes of the play. On three different occasions the “famous ones” assemble for dinner or afternoon collation in a castle near Salzburg (and near the Salzburger Festspiele), bought and renovated with “half a season’s salary” by a basso. In this “natural” environment the “famous ones” are off duty and off guard. They eat, drink and talk. Throughout...