GERHARD RÜHM

First release of Gerhard Rühm's Radio-Play 'Masoch'. A ritual recitation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Ignatius von Loyola for one female and one male speaker, a chorus of speakers, and two mute actors. Edition of 300 copies. When the sexual pathologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the term »masochism« in 1890, he was referring to the preferred literary topic and the lived obsessions of the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. With the help of biographical highlights based on various documentary material, Gerhard Rühm has developed a type of anecdotal psychogram of Sacher-Masoch's personality. In this process, "a parallel counterpart crystallized almost inevitably: the figure of Ignatius von Loyola, for whom the obscure inner compulsion of total subjugation" Rühm says "manifested itself from seemingly contrary motivations - the eradication rather than stimulation of the flesh." (label info)