Georg Büchner

"The soldier Wozzeck (Christian Gerhaher) flits through a world that he is unable to decipher. The doctor torments him with absurd medical experiments; the captain humiliates and ridicules him. And Wozzeck's lover, Marie (Gun-Brit Barkmin), with whom he has a child, cuckolds him with the drum major. Wozzeck becomes a murderer, stabbing Marie to death. Georg Büchner's drama fragment, on which Alban Berg based his first opera, is an unflinching case study of social injustice and human suffering. But it is also a grotesque piece that thrives on exaggeration--and in which only a fine line separates the unfathomable from the ridiculous. Accordingly, director Andreas Homoki forgoes all realism."--Publisher's web site.

Georg Buchner, who died at the age of twenty-three, is particularly remembered for his striking presentation of the revolutionary predicament in Dantons Tod and for his impressive proletarian tragedy Woyzek. This edition presents the two plays with an introduction and notes for students of German literature at school, at university and in centres of further education. Buchner's skilful contrast of political standpoints and his imaginative humanity have a permanent appeal. The combination of his innovative dramatic methods which inspired much of the dramatic practice of the twentieth century, his sympathy for the lower strata of society and his powerful expression of human anguish singles him out as an original and outstanding dramatist. Buchner is undoubtedly in the forefront of authors chosen for exciting courses introducing German literature to the English-speaking world.

Danton's death. Leonce and Lena.-Woyzeck.

'Danton's Death' is a dramatisation of the most extraordinary scenes of the French Revolution, of eloquence and execution. In 1794, the Revolution was reaching its climax. After a series of bloody purges the life-loving, volatile Danton is tormented by his part in the killing. His political rival, the driven and ascetic Robespierre, decides Danton's fate. A titanic struggle begins. Once friends who wanted to change the world together, now these two men stand against each other, one for compromise and the other for ideological purity, as the guillotine awaits. With a hair-raising on-rush of scenes and vivid dramatisation of complex, visionary characters, 'Danton's Death' has a claim to be one of the greatest political tragedies ever written. This version premiered at the National Theatre in 2010.

Büchner's special quality, and that which makes him seem more contemporary than almost anything written today, is his total, uncompromising honesty of emotion and intellect. The German writer Georg Büchner, who died in 1837 aged 23, left only three works for the theatre. Danton's Death, his great fresco of the French Revolution, was written in five weeks when Büchner was under threat of arrest for his own revolutionary activities. His sad comedy, Leonce and Lena, was composed in haste for a publisher's competition for which it was entered too late. The extraordinary proletarian tragedy Woyzeck was left unfinished at Buchner's death. Virtually unknown until the end of the nineteenth century, the plays have found an important place in the modern international repertory. - Back cover.