"Krone" Commentary

“The Handsome Clemens”: Folk Theater at Küniglberg

“Good old Gregor” Schütze did as Chancellor Stocker had told him—and thus made “handsome Clemens” Pig the head of ORF.(Bild: Imre Antal)

What comes to mind when you see plays titled “The Chaste Adam,” “Love at the Alpine Lake,” or “Valentin’s Fall from Grace”? You’re probably guessing light entertainment—and you wouldn’t be wrong. These are titles from the repertoire of the legendary Löwingerbühne. The ORF successfully served up this light—and for some, (too) shallow—entertainment to its then-much-larger audience, particularly in the 1970s. The audience laughed, or at least smiled.

Commentary on the major issues affecting Austria: Klaus Herrmann, Executive Editor-in-Chief(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Imre Antal, stock.adobe.com)

Predictable finale and poor acting
This week, ORF paid tribute to the legendary Löwingerbühne. Not, however, because something was staged on the Küniglberg that might have provoked laughter or a smile. No, the board of trustees meeting to appoint the future ORF Director General was anything but funny. But it bore other hallmarks of simple peasant theater—by which I certainly do not mean to insult the Löwingers posthumously, nor the peasantry. Peasant theater is characterized by a simple plot, a predictable ending, and often by poor performances by the actors and the director.

Which leads one to the conclusion: The board meeting was probably below Löwinger’s standard. Everyone in the Republic had known for weeks how the theater would end—after all, the Federal Chancellor, as the theater’s shadow director, had already decided the outcome: “The Handsome Clemens,” that is, the former APA chief Pig, must win.

“Clever Heinz” and “Good Old Gregor”
Shadow director Stocker had no trouble finding the right extras for this—the foundation board members drawn from the so-called “circles of friends” of the ÖVP and SPÖ. Their leaders, “Clever Heinz” and “Good Old Gregor,” did exactly as they were told. “Clever Heinz,” not only an amateur actor but also an amateur director, hatched an ingenious plan with his helpers: The red foundation board members would all vote for Pig, the candidate chosen by the black chancellor; then the votes would still be enough even if a few black foundation board members voted for other candidates. That way, it would look as though the blacks had voted freely and independently.

Clever, isn’t it? All the more so when the play drags on to epic lengths—that further underscores just how thoroughly the board of trustees grappled with the candidates before doing what was expected at the witching hour. “Late, but Still” is also a Löwinger title…

When is amateur theater good? When it’s funny but not too shallow. When the audience isn’t taken for fools. But that’s exactly what happened this week at Küniglberg. No applause, no fun.