Ingeborg Bachmann Three Radio Plays

Annotation

Each play deals with a certain aspect of our human condition, embedded in the framework of the world around us. In The Good God of Manhattan, for example Jan, a man from the Old World encounters Jennifer, a woman from the new world in Manhattan, where they fall prey to the perils of love and share the fate of lovers throughout time and place. The Cicadas is the tale of the marooned where the isolation of the island as an escape from the real world is symbolised in the Cicada's song. Though the setting is never stated explicitly in A Deal with Dreams, we assume it is Vienna, the City of Dreams. Here, dreams are for sale in a shady deal offered in the dim light of a pawnshop on a city street. In the end, we learn that the price of dreams is high.