A reissue of a comic and tragic play that asks just how much of our
life we could--or would--change if we got another chance.
In this play by Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch, a middle-aged
behavioral researcher Kürmann is given the opportunity to start his life
over at any point he chooses and change his decisions and actions in
matters both serious and mundane--He could save his marriage, become
politically active, take better care of his health, or even change the
color of his living room furniture. Despite his intention to apply the
wisdom he has acquired with age, Kürmann finds himself inexorably
trapped in the same decisions. Ultimately proving fatal, Kürmann's life
game interrogates how much of our own path is shaped by seemingly random
factors and how much is in fact predetermined by our own limited,
conditioned selves. The play's central idea--that our lives are nothing
but a self-conscious play with imaginary identities--is brilliantly
captured in Biography's dramaturgical form, setting up a theatre
rehearsal as the metaphor for the endless possibilities and variables of
the game of life.
Frisch's own revised, dramatically heightened version of his play
celebrates not only the theatre as a form of self-expression but also
the human condition in all its potential and limitations as it showcases
both comic and tragic outcomes that define all our lives.
