Johann Nestroy

Johann Nestroy (1801-1862), Austrian playwright and comic actor.

Nestroy was born in Vienna on December 7, 1801. Between 1822 and 1831 he travelled around Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands as an actor and opera singer, but then returned to his native city to begin writing his numerous satirical plays, in most of which he took the leading roles in productions at Viennese theatres including the Theater an der Wien, of which he was director from 1854 to 1861. His first major success was a fantasy, Der böse Geist des Lumpazivagabundus oder Das liederliche Kleeblatt (1835). He was to write over 80 plays, drawn from a variety of sources including contemporary English and French novels, and comedies and melodramas from London and Paris stages. His play Die Anverwandten (1848) is based on Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens. His later plays, which show a keen awareness of the nuances of class differences in the Austria of his day, include Einen Jux will er sich machen (1842) and Der Zerrissene (1844). His masterpiece is generally considered to be Der Talisman (1840). He died in Graz on May 25, 1862. Einen Jux will er sich machen was adapted by the American playwright Thornton Wilder as The Matchmaker (1954), which was itself adapted as the musical play and film Hello, Dolly.