A study of prejudice, identity, and collective guilt in a fictional Andorra
What the Work Is
Andorra is a play by the Swiss dramatist Max Frisch, written in 1961 and first published in 1962. It is one of the best-known of Frisch’s dramatic works in Germany. The play grew out of a prose sketch Frisch had written in his diary under the title Der andorranische Jude (“The Andorran Jew”). The Andorra of the play is a fictional place and is not meant to represent the real Andorra, the small country between France and Spain; Frisch remarked that “Andorra” had begun as a working title, but that he came to like the word “Andorrans” so much that he kept it.
What the Book Is About
The play centers on Andri, a young man raised by the Teacher and the Mother as their adopted Jewish son, alongside their daughter Barblin. The Teacher claims to have rescued Andri from the antisemitic “Blacks” of the neighboring country. Over the course of the action it emerges that Andri is in fact the Teacher’s own biological son, but by the time this truth can reach him, Andri has already embraced the Jewish identity that the town has imposed on him. The townspeople’s prejudice, and the various ways each of them benefits from treating Andri as an outsider, drive the play toward his death.
Frisch’s central aim, as the play’s construction makes clear, was to create a dramatic situation in which a character is mistaken for a Jew when he is not one, and to make every character and event serve that single idea.
Key Ideas and Themes
The play was written roughly fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, and it reads less as a direct reckoning with the war than as a study of cultural prejudice. Its concern, however, reaches beyond prejudice in the abstract. A recurring insight of the play is that many characters have something to gain from Andri’s being a Jew: the Teacher is able to present himself as a Good Samaritan, the Soldier can pursue Barblin, the Carpenter can profit, and even the Priest can display his Christian sympathy for the outsider. Prejudice, in other words, is bound up with self-interest and self-image.
A related theme is hypocrisy, which the play signals through the motif of whitewashing — an image that opens and closes the work. Another recurring motif is shoes, which stand for the roles assigned to the people who wear them; the idea appears to draw on the expression “to put oneself in someone else’s shoes.” At the end of the play, Andri’s shoes are left on the stage, and Barblin asks the others not to touch them until he returns, though Andri is already dead.
Structure and Approach
Andorra is an example of epic theatre, the style popularized by Bertolt Brecht in the early twentieth century, as opposed to classical theatre. Epic theatre seeks to prompt the audience to think critically about the questions and ideas raised by the play, so that they form their own rational opinions as active observers rather than becoming absorbed in the story.
Frisch builds the play around the Verfremdungseffekt, or distancing effect, which keeps the audience at a remove from the action so that they reflect on its themes instead of losing themselves in the plot. Most of the characters — with the exceptions of Andri, Barblin, and perhaps the Teacher — are one-dimensional stereotypes with few personality traits, present mainly to advance the plot or to embody examples of prejudice. Most are identified only by their occupations, such as the Landlord, and only the traits relevant to the theme are shown, such as the Doctor’s narrow-mindedness. Giving these figures fuller personalities would, in the play’s logic, only distract from what matters.
The play is not divided into scenes in the classical manner but into twelve Bilder (“pictures”) of varying length and structure. Between the pictures are Vordergrundszenen (foreground scenes), in which a character stands in a kind of witness box and makes a “confession” to an imaginary court; all of them except the Priest claim to be innocent. These interludes break up the action and its tension, giving the audience room to reflect. Tension is further released because the play gives away its two biggest shocks early: the Landlord states in his confession that Andri is really the Teacher’s son, and it is made repeatedly clear that something terrible will happen to Andri.
Significance and Influence
In Germany, Andorra remains one of the best known of Frisch’s plays. It was translated and adapted for English-language audiences by Michael Bullock in 1964 and produced by the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, directed by Lindsay Anderson. In 2001, a revival was co-produced by the Young Vic Theatre and the Royal National Theatre Studio, directed by Gregory Thompson and performed at the Young Vic.
At the beginning of the play, Andri is engaged to Barblin. The Soldier is interested in her sexually, but she strongly dislikes him. The townspeople hold antisemitic views, and there are rumours of a coming invasion by the Blacks. The Teacher sells land to the Landlord so that he can pay the Carpenter to take on Andri as an apprentice. However, Andri is later dismissed from his apprenticeship when the Carpenter thinks that Andri has made a poor-quality chair, which was in fact made by the Journeyman, who does not admit to it. The Carpenter instead employs Andri as a salesman.
The Doctor makes antisemitic remarks in front of Andri, unaware that Andri believes that he is Jewish. Andri tells the Teacher and the Mother that he and Barblin want to marry, and that they have been in love since childhood. The Teacher forbids the marriage without giving a reason; Andri thinks that it is because he is Jewish. The Teacher says, in an aside, that Andri is in fact his biological son. He tries to tell Andri this, but Andri has embraced his Jewishness and refuses to listen. At the same time, the Soldier rapes Barblin; Andri discovers this fact later.
The Mother, believing Andri to be a Jew, asks the Priest to speak to Andri to help him accept his Jewishness. The Señora then arrives in town; the townspeople are prejudiced against her because she is a foreigner. She helps Andri after he is assaulted by the Soldier. It is revealed that the Señora is Andri’s real mother, but she leaves the town without telling Andri this; she gives Andri a ring. The Mother learns the truth about Andri’s parentage, and the Teacher asks the Priest to explain the truth to Andri. Andri is not at all receptive and believes his fate to be sealed. The Señora is killed after a stone is thrown at her, and the Landlord claims that Andri is responsible; it is heavily implied that the Landlord killed her.
The Blacks invade, and the Soldier defects and joins them. The townspeople search for Andri, believing him to be a murderer; Andri hides outside, where the Teacher tries to persuade him of the truth, and then inside the Teacher’s house with Barblin. Andri confronts Barblin about her relationship with the Soldier, and tells her to kiss him; he is not acting rationally at this point. The Soldier enters the house and arrests Andri.
The Blacks conduct a “Jew-Show” (die Judenschau) in the town square, led by the “Jew-Inspector” (der Judenschauer), to find the Señora’s killer. This is shown to be a show trial; despite Barblin and the Mother’s attempts to disrupt the process, the other townspeople co-operate. Andri does not defend himself, and is killed by soldiers, who are impelled to cut off his finger to take the Señora’s ring. Afterwards, the Teacher hangs himself. Barblin has her head shaved — earlier in the play, the Blacks are rumoured to do this to the wives of Jews — and goes mad. She does not fully accept that Andri has died, and leaves his shoes on the stage, stopping people from touching them.
The Confessions
Every character alive at the end of the play makes a statement from the witness box, except for Barblin, the Mother, and the non-speaking characters. Each townsperson attempts to rationalise their involvement in Andri’s death; only the Priest is willing to accept any guilt.
