Читать книгу Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women онлайн

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“During WW II immigrants shaped the theater in Switzerland to a significant extent. Many stage artists from Germany and Austria lived and worked in our country. Those who were not able to escape to America gathered in Switzerland. They shaped not only the famous Schauspielhaus in Zurich, we also met these extraordinary artists in the theaters in Bern, St Gallen, Lucerne, Basel, Solothurn, and elsewhere.

“They brought with them the great old tradition of theater and revived and inspired theater life in Switzerland. By now almost all of them have died. They are not totally forgotten, yet as the saying goes, ‘posterity presents no wreaths to actors,’ and most of them were not immortalized in films – to say nothing of television. Thus today we have only one last witness to this era in the great Maria Becker in Zurich who still makes appearances on stage.”

For 250 Swiss francs a month Linda Geiser played the roles of naïve young girls – as her specialty was called then – in the ensemble of the Atelier Theater. In addition there were salon ladies, character actors, the young heroes – all designations that are no longer used today. “From one day to the next I had to take on great parts for which I had not even been hired. Such a piece of luck! Two actresses were absent; they were talented, but one turned out to be an alcoholic, the other one a hysteric. Thus I was able to play the parts of Eliza in Pygmalion by G. B. Shaw, of Jessica in Dirty Hands by J. P. Sartre, and several other parts for which I was essentially still much too young.