Carl Zuckmayer

“In the drama die Uhr schlägt eins the man Carl Zuckmayer can be recognised with cruel clarity: where he comes from, what he has experienced, what he can do, who he was, who he is. It cannot only be seen in his style, but also in the plot, the characters. "La pièce est l´homme même", as Buffon would say.
Carl Zuckmayer and how he involuntarily presents himself to us in this play: A German who is stunned that his fellow countrymen successfully try to overcome the past without having dealt with it. An emigrant stunned that the Jewish people, who were such an important part of the German nation, only haunt that same nation as a shadow or a memory or an unspecified relic anymore. A poet who is stunned that the lie of prosperity covers everything in our politically and morally very torn times. Carl Zuckmayer: a man who is as bewildered as are the times which he cannot cope with anymore.” (Peter Weiser about the world premiere at the Burgtheater iin Vienna in 1961)