米奈蒂

Minetti is another historical character introduced into the play, to the utter astonishment of his contemporaries. Bernhard Minetti (1905-1998) was one of the most famous theater actors of Germany, a long-living performer who took the stage even in his nineties despite the difficulty in movement.

In fact, Thomas Berhard did create his play for the historical person of Bernhard Minetti. In 1976, the 71-year-old Minetti despised all unlucky signs and sad predictions and played the death of an old actor bearing his own name. The premiere of “Minetti” took place in Stuttgart (Wuertemberg State Theater) and after the premiere the actor lived for 22 years.

All the more interesting are some “corrections” that the real life of Minetti brought into the fictitious plot, and the unmeant predictions expressed in the play.

The next role of the real Minetti was Prospero from Shakespeare’s “Tempest” (Schiller Theater, Berlin, 1977), the role which Minetti the character longed to play after Lear and for whom Ensor was supposed to create a mask but never did. Unexpectedly for everyone, in the play there was a prophecy about Lear: in fact the last big role played by the 80-year-old Minetti at the theater was King Lear in W. Shakespeare’s tragedy: (Schaubuehne Theater, Berlin, 1984).

This is how the flight of imagination left the play and the stage and came into the real life of the actor.