''Goldberg Variations'' is a play by

George Tabori George Tabori ( György Tábori; 24 May 1914 – 23 July 2007) was a Hungarian writer and theatre director. Life and career Tabori was born in Budapest as György Tábori, a son of Kornél and Elsa Tábori. His father Kornél (Cornelius) was m ...

which was first performed in 1991 in German as ''Die Goldberg-Variationen'' in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Akademietheater The Akademietheater in Vienna, Austria, is the smaller of two performance halls of the Burgtheater organization. It was constructed in the years 1911 to 1913 by architects Fellner & Helmer Fellner & Helmer was an architecture studio founded in 1 ...

. The title alludes to Bach's ''

Goldberg Variations The ''Goldberg Variations'', BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also hav ...

'', which is also used as background music. The play is set in Jerusalem and presents a disastrous rehearsal of a theatrical production based on the Old and

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

s, directed by Mr. Jay, a god-like figure. His assistant is Goldberg, a Jew who has escaped from the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

. Plot points include

Creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing * Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it * Creationism, the belief tha ...

, the

fall of man The fall of man, the fall of Adam, or simply the Fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. * * * * The doctrine of the ...

, the

binding of Isaac The Binding of Isaac ( he, , ), or simply "The Binding" (, ), is a story from Genesis 22 of the Hebrew Bible. In the biblical narrative, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Moriah. As Abraham begins to comply, having bound Isa ...

, the golden calf, and the

Crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

, all presented with a satirical combination of seriousness and farce.

History

Tabori wrote the play in English, and it was translated by Ursula Grützmacher-Tabori. The premiere at the

in Vienna on 22 June 1991 was directed by the author, with

Gert Voss Gert Voss (10 October 1941 – 13 July 2014) was a German actor. He was known for his roles in ''Labyrinth of Lies'' (2014), ''Sometime in August'' (2009) and ' (1987). He was member of the ensemble of the Burgtheater, and a ''Kammerschauspie ...

as Mr. Jay and Ignaz Kirchner as Goldberg. The actors were awarded the Actor Duo of the Year (''Schauspielerpaar des Jahres'') prize by the trade magazine ''

Theater heute ''Theater heute'' (German: ''Theatre Today'') is a German language monthly magazine with a special focus on theatre. The magazine is based in Berlin, Germany, and has been in circulation since 1960. History and profile ''Theater heute'' was foun ...

'' in 1991 for their performance. The play was published by Kiepenheuer. It received further stagings: Ingmar Bergman directed it at the

Royal Dramatic Theatre The Royal Dramatic Theatre ( sv, Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, colloquially ''Dramaten'') is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's five running stages. The the ...

in Stockholm in 1994, using Bach's variations and hard rock. A 2008 production by the

Berliner Ensemble The Berliner Ensemble () is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langho ...

by , with

Dieter Mann Dieter Mann (20 June 1941 – 3 February 2022) was a German actor, director, university professor, and radio personality. In his career he acted in several theater productions and in over 140 film and television productions. Between 1984 and 199 ...

and , was still compared to the first performance.

Plot

In Jerusalem, Mr. Jay leads the rehearsal of a play which enacts scenes from the Old Testament in its first part, and from the

after the intermission. Goldberg, a Jew who survived the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, is his assistant. The production, which Feinberg notes as an outstanding example of ''

mise en abyme In Western art history, ''mise en abyme'' (; also ''mise en abîme'') is a formal technique of placing a copy of an image within itself, often in a way that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence. In film theory and literary theory, it refers ...

'', presents "a series of disasters throughout the history of humankind where God has decided not to intervene". These scenes include

, the

, the golden calf, and the

. The dialogue is liberally laced with direct quotes and allusions to verses from Scripture and lines from Shakespeare and Milton. Everything goes wrong in the rehearsal and Mr. Jay is thoroughly dissatisfied with it. Mr. Jay has been identified with God, and also with Tabori. The play explores the relationship between Mr. Jay and Goldberg on several levels, with irony and bitter seriousness. The two antagonists depict the relationship between God and man, also father and son, victimizer and victim, antisemitic figure and Jew.

References

{{authority control Theatre of the Absurd 1991 plays English plays Plays based on the Bible