The problem of faith crisis in the drama 'The Bus' by Lukas Bärfuss

E.N. Shevchenko

Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia

E-mail: elenachev@mail.ru

Received October 10, 2017

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Abstract

Lukas Bärfuss, a contemporary Swiss playwright, is one of the brightest representatives of the new German-language drama. L. Bärfuss is interested in the existential problems, such as life and death, love, faith, suffering, and meaning of life. In the center of his dramas, there is always a modern man living in a world that is “bursting at the seams”. This is the world of lost faith and falsified values of classical culture. The play “The Bus” is dedicated to the issues of religion, or rather to the crisis of faith in modern western society. An ordinary story – a bus ride to the mountains – suddenly turns into a journey of the passengers into the depths of their own selves, and ends with their death. The upstart of the plot is the appearance on the bus of a young pilgrim Erica, going to the Polish city of Czestochowa, to appear before the face of the Black Madonna. The presence of the worshiping girl highlights the spiritual emptiness of other passengers. The final apocalyptic picture is in tune with the social pessimism and despair inherent in modern European drama.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the problems of the crisis of faith in modern European society based on the play by Lukas Bärfuss “The Bus”; to study the image of a “lost man”, the one who lost faith in oneself, in goodness and God himself as a new “hero” of modern drama.

Keywords: Lukas Bärfuss, Swiss drama, crisis of faith, new German drama, social despair

References

1. False feelings and open wounds: The Swiss playwright Lukas Bärfuss arguing that everything around us is questionable. Available at: http://www.colta.ru/articles/swiss_made/1702. (In Russian)
2. “The Bus” by Lukas Bärfuss in Perm. Available at: http://www.colta.ru/swiss_made/news/4880. (In Russian)
3. “The Bus” by the playwright Lukas Bärfuss will be staged in Perm. Available at: http://perm-news.net/culture/2014/10/15/36849.html. (In Russian)
4. Where does Lukas Bärfuss's bus take us? Available at: http://www.moscowbookfair.ru/novosti/ kuda-vezet-avtobus-lukasa-berfusa.html. (In Russian)
5. Rudnev P. Subjects of modern play: Connection between Russian and German drama and theater. Sb. st. i materialov mezhdunar. nauch. konf. (7–9 okt. 2010 g.) [Proc. Int. Sci. Conf. (Oct. 7–9, 2010)]. Kazan, RITs, 2011, pp. 4–14. (In Russian)

For citation: Shevchenko E.N. The problem of faith crisis in the drama “The Bus” by Lukas Bärfuss. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2018, vol. 160, no. 1, pp. 252–260. (In Russian)

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