Toller: Plays One

Download or read book Toller: Plays One written by Ernst Toller and published by Oberon Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes the plays Transformation, Masses Man, Hoppla, We’re Alive! Preface by Charles Wood. Ernst Toller (1893-1939) was a formative figure in the development of theatrical modernism, yet his plays have not been available in English since the 1920s and '30s. He was also a revolutionary activist who experienced fully the unbearable cataclysms of his times: war, revolution, imprisonment, the chaos of Weimar life, Nazi persecution, exile and the Holocaust. His revolutionary intensity infuses these three innovative plays, all of which inspired landmark productions and substantially extended the language of theatricality. These stage-worthy new translations capture that spirit of artistic and political combustion and should help to restore Toller's rightful place in the modern repertoire. Twenty-seven rarely seen production and design photographs are brought together here for the first time and, with the extensive supplementary material, they create a vivid sense of modern theatre in the making. Essential reading for the contemporary theatre student, scholar, spectator and practitioner.