Werner Schwab

In Antiklimax, one of Werner Schwab’s last plays, the chasms of the family – this time a lower-middle class one – are again the painful fulcrum of the world. Father, mother, brother, sister: they hurt each other, verbally and physically. Death is the logical consequence of exaggerated family idiosyncrasy.
Mariedl, the unforgettable queen of the toilet from Die Präsidentinnen, lives on in this play. In Antiklimax, too, she is oppressed and bears her fate with exaggerated patience, but here she celebrates insight that exceeds herself.
If it is at all possible to say so, given his previous plays, Schwab’s language here achieves even greater heights and lifts the petty-bourgeois drama to world-class theatre. Archaic, biblical, mythical, faecal.