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The play could not be found for almost 100 years. Now – freshly spiced up – it is intended to commemorate the Uri artist Heinrich Danioth.
Anyone who has ever driven over the Gotthard Pass knows it: The Devil’s Bridge. There, on a rock face of the Schöllenen Gorge, the image of a devil is emblazoned in red. The depiction of the devil comes from Heinrich Danioth.
The motif is reminiscent of the legend of the devil’s bridge, according to which the devil is said to have built the first bridge in the Schöllenen for the people of Uri. Whatever it was, the picture earned Heinrich Danioth (1898 to 1953) from Uri the title of “Devil Painter”.
Legend:
The devil on the rock face. The picture by Heinrich Danioth is in the Schöllenen Gorge in Uri on the road between Andermatt and Göschenen.
Keystone/ Martin Ruetschi
An expressionist painter – that was the Danioth mainly. But Danioth was also an author. He wrote radio plays, attacked Nazi Germany in satirical magazine texts and wrote a play.
This has a special history: It is called “Urner Revue” and was written by Danioth in 1928. Although people knew that this piece existed, they hadn’t seen it for almost a hundred years. The piece was considered lost.
Disorganized and incomplete in a box
This was until the Zurich conceptual artist and director Livio Beyeler came to Urnerland. He had dealt intensively with Heinrich Danioth and read in a doctoral thesis that Danioth had also written a play. Beyeler: “The piece was considered lost, so I went looking for it.”
Beyeler found what he was looking for far down in a box in the Uri State Archives – fragments of the piece came to light in a disorderly and incomplete manner. Beyeler really had to collect the individual parts.
The concept of home coined Danioth
The fact that not all of the fragments were available gives the artist a certain degree of freedom. Now he likes to use it. The piece is now called “Welcome home” and is quite modern. It’s about a Swiss expatriate who returns to his old homeland and doesn’t recognize it. An exciting examination of the concept of home,
What is home? Not an easy question for theater director Beyeler, since the term is very individual: “Food, rooms, feelings, friendship: Very different facets lead to a sense of home.”
Very different facets lead to a sense of home.
Heinrich Danioth also struggled with the concept of home throughout his life, as he didn’t want to be “just” the painter of the homeland of Uri. Beyeler: “Danioth is a multi-faceted person who has thought deeply about home, but also about many other topics.”
Modern mind in a traditional setting
In the conservative and traditionalist Central Switzerland, he was also sometimes controversial, with his then very modern lifestyle. And yet, 70 years after his death, Danioth is still unforgettable. Mainly because of his pictures: In addition to the Schöllenen, he is also immortalized in the Federal Letters Museum in Schwyz.
The piece “Welcome Home” can be seen in the Haus der Kunst in Altdorf until April 29th. In addition to the theatre, there is also an exhibition on the subject.
SRF1, regional journal Central Switzerland, 24.3. 2023, 5:30 p.m.; prir;velm