Max Frisch
Frisch's dramas up until the early 1960s are divided by the literary commentator into three groups: (1) the early wartime pieces, (2) the poetic plays such as "" ("Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie") and (3) the dialectical pieces. It is above all with this third group, notably the parable "The Fire Raisers" (1953), identified by Frisch as a "lesson without teaching", and with "Andorra" (1961) that Frisch enjoyed the most success. Indeed, these two are among the most successful German language plays. The writer nevertheless remained dissatisfied because he believed they had been widely misunderstood. In an interview with Heinz Ludwig Arnold Frisch vigorously rejected their allegorical approach: "I have established only that when I apply the parable format, I am obliged to deliver a message that I actually do not have". After the 1960s Frisch moved away from the theatre. His late biographical plays "" ("Biografie: Ein Spiel") and "" were apolitical but they failed to match the public success of his earlier dramas. It was only shortly before his death that Frisch returned to the stage with a more political message, with "Jonas and his Veteran", a stage version of his arresting dialogue "Switzerland without an army? A Palaver".
Max Frisch
Frisch adapted principals of Bertolt Brecht's Epic theatre both for his dramas and for his prose works. As early as 1948 he concluded a contemplative piece on the alienation effect with the observation, "One might be tempted to ascribe all these thoughts to the narrative author: the linguistic application of the alienation effect, the wilfully mischievous aspect of the prose, the uninhibited artistry which most German language readers will reject because they find it "too arty" and because it inhibits empathy and connection, sabotaging the conventional illusion that the story in the narrative really happened." Notably, in the 1964 novel "Gantenbein" "("A Wilderness of Mirrors")", Frisch rejected the conventional narrative continuum, presenting instead, within a single novel, a small palette of variations and possibilities. The play (1967) extended similar techniques to theatre audiences. Already in "Stiller" (1954) Frisch embedded, in a novel, little sub-narratives in the form of fragmentary episodic sections from his "diaries". In his later works Frisch went further with a form of that produced a literary collage of texts, notes and visual imagery in "The Holozän" (1979).