Battino Rubin - Meaning: a Play Based on the Life of Viktor E. Frankl

Albert Camus wrote in The First Man, There are people who vindicate the world, who help others just by their presence.

For those of us who have encountered these precious souls who seem to vindicate the world, it may be difficult to describe the qualities that make them different from others, but we know when we have been touched by them. Their mere presence seems to charge the moment, giving sudden depth and clarity to simply being alive. Often, these people have suffered greatly; they are the wounded healers who have taken their own suffering and made it a resource from which to draw the strength and empathy to help others.

Viktor Frankl was a man whose presence vindicated the world. I was privileged to know him and his family. I was among the multitudes who admired him, learned from him, and loved him unabashedly. I am a better man for having known him.

As a psychologist, I try to define the driving passion of such prodigious souls. What is it that allows a human being to bear, and even to transcend, seemingly unbearable burdensto thrive where another might wither? For Frankl, the answer was in a simple little word that contains the world: meaning. He was the high priest of meaning, and it was a sacred word to him, without which there could be no true motivation.

Viktor E. Frankl, M.D., Ph.D., was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 26, 1905, and he died there on September 2, 1997. He was Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna. A guest professor at several universities in the United States, he held 29 honorary doctorates from universities throughout the world. During World War II, he spent three years at Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps. Frankls 32 books appear in 26 languages. According to a Library of Congress poll, his Mans Search for Meaning is one of the ten most influential books among readers in the United States.

Frankl was the founder of Logotherapy, the third Viennese school of psychiatry, Freudian and Adlerian being the other two. Logotherapy maintains that there are three main avenues to creating meaning in life: the first is through deeds and working; the second is through relationships (loving and experiences); and the third is through facing a difficult fate and then building upon that challenge in order to help others.

Meaning: A Play Based on the Life of Viktor Frankl brings Frankl to life in full dimensionhis spirit, determination, wisdom, and integrity. Battino has chosen to set the play for the most part during the Holocaust, bringing into sharp focus the extraordinary power of this man to extract from the bleakest of circumstances a reason to live. After all, in contradiction, there is inherent drama. And, while this is a play written in homage to Viktor Frankl, it is, more than that, a play about love and meaning, no matter that reality seems to be calling for something quite different. In these pages, we are reminded of what it is to live profoundly, as we have the opportunity to be in Frankls presence once again.

Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D.
Director of The Milton H. Erickson Foundation,
President of Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, Inc., Publishers.