Meaning

A Play Based on the Life of Viktor E. Frankl

Rubin Battino

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9781899836833
• eBook ISBN: 9781845905408
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

Meaningis a biography in play form. Using many of his own words, the play focuses on key moments in Frankl's life: it explores his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, his development of Logotherapy and his insights into the human condition. His book "Man's Search for Meaning" has influenced millions of people worldwide.

Act I

Scene 1

About Man’s Search
for Meaning

Title Board:	ABOUT MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING
	In a lecture hall
	Frankl; Frankl’s Colleague
Visual:	Frankl lecturing.
Stage Directions:	There is a lectern for a lecture. Frankl is behind the lectern and Colleague is stage right commenting.

FRANKL: My book Man’s Search for Meaning does not claim to be an account of facts and events but of personal experiences, experiences which millions of prisoners here suffered time and again. It is the inside story of a concentration camp, told by one of its survivors. This tale is not concerned with the great horrors, which have already been described often enough (though less often believed), but with the multitude of small torments. In other words, it will try to answer this question: How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?

FRANKL’S COLLEAGUE (COLLEAGUE): And you presume to speak for them all, to describe their experiences? You survived, yes. Speak about your thoughts, your survival. Do you think another description will answer that question?

FRANKL: Yes. We were separate, we were individual, we made choices; yet, we were so controlled and confined that at times we were just one mind, one body.

COLLEAGUE: So tell your tale. On your head be it.

FRANKL: Most of the events described in the book did not take place in the large and famous camps, but in the small ones where most of the real extermination took place. This story is not about the suffering and death of great heroes and martyrs, nor is it about the prominent Capos—prisoners who acted as trustees, having special privileges—or well-known prisoners. It is not so much concerned with the suffering of the mighty, but with the sacrifices, the crucifixion and the deaths of the great army of unknown and unrecorded victims.

COLLEAGUE: You’re reading minds again.

FRANKL: Not so, we were one. Yes, it was these common prisoners, who bore no distinguishing marks on their sleeves, whom the Capos really despised. You see, while these ordinary prisoners had little or nothing to eat, the Capos never went hungry. In fact, many of the Capos lived better in the camp than they had in their lives.

COLLEAGUE: Another paradox.

FRANKL: Often these men were harder on the prisoners than were the guards, and beat them more cruelly than the SS men did.

COLLEAGUE: And will you tell their story, too?

FRANKL: Perhaps that will come out. These Capos, of course, were chosen only from those prisoners whose characters promised to make them suitable for such procedures. If they did not comply with what was expected of them, they were immediately demoted.

COLLEAGUE: They, too, had choices; or did fear rob them of that?

FRANKL: Fear? Fear? Almost a meaningless word in the camps.

COLLEAGUE: You were afraid.

FRANKL: Of course. You would need to be crazy not to. But, these men soon became much like the SS men and the camp wardens. They can all be judged on a similar psychological basis.

Wednesday Lecture, 1966. Source: Viktor Frankl Institute, Vienna, Austria.

COLLEAGUE: Are you judging? You who understood it all?

FRANKL: You can understand and judge. That is what makes us human. To understand does not remove the obligation to judge. Or to forgive.

COLLEAGUE: Fancy words. I need to hear more.

FRAN...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Preface
• Production Notes
• Act I
• Act II
• Copyright