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Nothing depresses his mercurial spirits. He borrows from Peter to pay Paul, and an hour later borrows from Paul to pay himself. His boyhood friend he simply plunders. This Ernest, in reality the Graf von Trautenau, is an idealist of the type that Wedekind is fond of delineating.
Naturally, Wedekind is the poet speaking his own lines, acting his own creations, and there is, for that reason, an intimate note in his interpretations, an indescribable sympathy, and an underscoring of his meanings that even a much superior actor might miss.
Weak wills in either sex have been the trump card of the latter-day dramatist; not a sound man or woman who isn't at the same time stupid, can be found in the plays of Ibsen or Hauptmann or the rest. Wedekind mentions no names, but he tweaks several noses prominent in dramatic literature. He is the younger generation kicking in the panels of the doors in the old houses.
After fourteen fruitful years in St. James' Church, Wedekind was called to Christopher Street in November, 1878, to succeed Pastor Held. Here he labored for twelve years, edifying the church and inspiring St. John's to bcome one of our most efficient congregations. Under his direction at least four young men of the congregation were led into the ministry. He died April 8, 1897.
Frank Wedekind is less of the stage prestidigitator and more sincere. We must, perforce, listen to his creatures as they parade their agony before us, and we admire his clever rogues the never-to-be-forgotten Marquis of Keith heads the list and smile at their rough humour and wisdom. For me, the real Frank Wedekind is not the prophet, but the dramatist.
The caprice, the bizarre, the morbid in Wedekind are more than redeemed by his rich humanity. He loves his fellow man even when he castigates him. He is very emotional, also pragmatic.
Wedekind consented, because he was ill, but he made his protest, and justly so. The Marquis of Keith is a larger canvas. It is a modern rogues' comedy. Barry Lyndon is hardly more entertaining. The marquis is the son of an humble tutor in the house of a count whose son later figures as Ernest Scholtz. The marquis is a swindler in the grand manner.
In the prologue to one of his plays he tells his audience that to Wedekind must they come if they wish to see genuine wild and beautiful beasts. This sounds like Stirner. He lays much stress on the fact that literature, whether poetic or otherwise, has become too "literary" hardly a novel idea; and boasts that none of his characters has read a book.
In 1901 he went to Berlin, and became the Kapellmeister of the "Uberbrettl," the cabaret managed by Birnbaum, Wedekind and von Wolzogen. Due to the influence of Richard Strauss, he secured a position as instructor in Stern's Conservatory. In 1903 he returned to Vienna. He aroused the interest of Gustav Mahler, who secured performances for several of his works.
In his eyes there lurked the "dancing-madness" of which Robert Louis Stevenson writes. A latter-day pagan, with touches of the perverse, the grotesque, and the poetic; thus seems to me Frank Wedekind. Who owns the thirty-fifth canvas by Jan Vermeer of Delft? And are there more than thirty-five works by this master of cool, clear daylight?
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