Festival Culture, Metatheatre and Modernity in Karl Schönherr's Der Judas von Tirol

The Catholic festival culture of his native Tyrol and the local folk hero Andreas Hofer feature repeatedly in the plays of Karl Schonherr (1867–1943). The two come together in challenging ways in The Tyrolean Judas, which builds a metatheatrical passion play into a literary re-imagining of Hofer's betrayal. Existing in three versions, The Tyrolean Judas is an excellent vehicle for exploring Schonherr's responses to his Tyrolean heritage in the light of the changing cultural and political climate. Analysis of the very successful revised version of 1927 also highlights the play's psychological sophistication and its complex relationship to modernist trends in interwar drama.