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
Interviewed in 1975, Frisch acknowledged that his literary career had not been marked by some "sudden breakthrough" (""...frappanten Durchbruch"") but that success had arrived, as he asserted, only very slowly. Nevertheless, even his earlier publications were not entirely without a certain success. In his 20s he was already having pieces published in various newspapers and journals. As a young writer he also had work accepted by an established publishing house, the Munich based , which already included a number of distinguished German-language authors on its lists. When he decided he no longer wished to have his work published in Nazi Germany he changed publishers, joining up with which had relocated their head office from Berlin to Zürich in response to the political changes in Germany. In 1950 Frisch switched publishers again, this time to the arguably more mainstream publishing house then being established in Frankfurt by Peter Suhrkamp. 
Frisch was still only in his early 30s when he turned to drama, and his stage work found ready acceptance at the Zürich Playhouse, at this time one of Europe's leading theatres, the quality and variety its work much enhanced by an influx of artistic talent since the mid-1930s from Germany. Frisch's early plays, performed at Zürich, were positively reviewed and won prizes. It was only in 1951, with "", that Frisch experienced his first stage-flop. The experience encouraged him to pay more attention to audiences outside his native Switzerland, notably in the new and rapidly developing Federal Republic of Germany, where the novel "I'm Not Stiller" succeeded commercially on a scale that till then had eluded Frisch, enabling him now to become a full-time professional writer.