''Big and Little'' () is a 1978 play by the German writer Botho Strauß. It has the subtitle ''Scenes'' (''Szenen'') and has also been played in English as ''Big and Small''. It follows a woman, Lotte, who travels through Germany and seeks human connections, but is unsuccessful as every person she encounters is locked into his own world. The play is a station drama in ten scenes. It premiered on 8 December 1978 at the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer in West Berlin, directed by Peter Stein and starring

Edith Clever Edith Clever (born 13 December 1940, in Wuppertal) is a German actress. Filmography *1976: ' *1976: Die Marquise von O. ('' Die Marquise von O'') *1978: Die linkshändige Frau (''The Left-Handed Woman'') *1979: Mädchenjahre ('' L'Adolescent ...

. It was broadcast as a German television play in 1980. It has also been titled ''Great and Small'', as was the case for a 1983 British production which starred

Glenda Jackson Glenda May Jackson (born 9 May 1936) is an English actress and former Member of Parliament (MP). She has won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice: for her role as Gudrun Brangwen in the romantic drama ''Women in Love'' (1970); and again for ...

Reception

John Simon reviewed the play in '' New York'' in 1979, when it was first performed in the United States: "The stultifying banality of the play is matched only by its arrogance—it is, for example, written in a pointless free verse that becomes even flatter in Anne Cattaneo's translation. The only thing big about ''Big and Little'' is its pretentiousness; everything else, except its length, is little."

Mel Gussow Melvyn Hayes "Mel" Gussow (; December 19, 1933 – April 29, 2005) was an American theater critic, movie critic, and author who wrote for ''The New York Times'' for 35 years. Biography Gussow was born in New York City and grew up in Rockville ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described the play in 1983 as "theoretically tantalizing, more interesting to contemplate than to experience and less adventurous than works by Mr. Strauss's peers such as

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...

and

Franz Xaver Kroetz Franz Xaver Kroetz (; born 25 February 1946) is a German author, playwright, actor and film director. He achieved great success beginning in the early 1970s. ''Persistent'', '' Farmyard'', and ''Request Concert'', all written in 1971, are some o ...

." He added, however, that it "does succeed in acting as a theatrical stimulant. Having seen it, one will want to talk about it." A performance starring

Cate Blanchett Catherine Elise Blanchett (; born 14 May 1969) is an Australian actor. Regarded as one of the finest performers of her generation, she is known for her versatile work across independent films, blockbusters, and the stage. She has received nu ...

was staged at the

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhi ...

in London in 2012. Tim Auld wrote in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' that the play is "about as bleak a two and three quarter hours as you're likely to while away in the theatre", but that "it does, however, offer that rarest of things in modern drama: a virtuoso role for a lead actress, the main character, Lotte, being on stage for nearly every second of the performance".

Reception

References

Further reading