SOURCE: “Theatertheater/Theaterspiele: The Plays of Thomas Bernhard,” in Modern Drama, Vol. 30, No. 1, March, 1987, pp. 104–14.

In the following essay, Eisner contests Bernhard’s reputation as a nihilist.

Because of the concentration on illness, madness and death in his work as a whole, Thomas Bernhard and his work have until recently often been classified—and dismissed—as nihilistic, without further thought being given to the matter. As can be seen from a reading of any of Bernhard’s texts, whether prose or drama, nihilistic is a suitable, but nevertheless incomplete, classification of this product. It is incomplete because the ease with which the nihilism is perceived leads one to suspect that it is perhaps a façade covering something else and that Bernhard might well be a poseur, “a literary figure excelling in brilliant but destructive artistry using nihilism as an expedient” rather than a “true nihilist who bases...