About the genre specificity of the plays «Guests» («Gäste») by Oliver Bukowski and «The Ugly One» («Der Hässliche») by Marius von Mayenburg: from the author's definition to the reception of critics and viewers

Abstract

The plays "Guests" ("Gäste") by Oliver Bukowski and Marius von Mayenburg's "The Ugly One" ("Der Hässliche") reflect the most important genre processes that are typical for the historical and world literary development of drama at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century: the individualization of the genre of each individual play; active hybridization of genres of dramaturgy; the processes of genre transformation, genre convergence and genre diffusion, etc. Modern German drama at this stage of its development is becoming fundamentally dialogic, open to reader / audience interpretations and theatrical reinterpretations. The literary approach implemented in this article – in the paradigm from the author's genre definition to the analysis of the audience's perception of the director's productions of plays – allows a deeper understanding, first of all, of the ideological and artistic originality of a literary work.