Voor het pensioen

A black, stark comedy by Thomas Bernhard about a society that remains haunted by its far-right past.

With Voor het pensioen [Before Retirement], Austrian author Thomas Bernhard wrote what he considers his best play in 1979. It takes place at the Höller family home on 7 October, the birthday of Heinrich Himmler, former SS leader. Rudolf Höller, once a camp commander and for years a respected president of the court, is about to retire. 7 October is a special day for him and his sister Vera. Clara, their younger sister who is confined to a wheelchair, stands on the sidelines of this celebration. She is weighed down by the burden of the past and watches with sadness as her family embraces cruelty.

In the claustrophobic and incestuous home of the Höllers, an ideological power game unfolds. A celebration of guilt, resentment, denial and moral decay. And of family ties that can never be broken.

Tom Dewispelaere is not staging this play without reason. The specific cause is the disturbing normalisation of vocabulary and ideas that are the direct legacy of the right-wing extremism of the 1930s and 1940s. Many statements that we thought had been relegated to the margins of our political culture, are once again at the centre of public debate.