Two Plays of Weimar Germany

"Ferdinand Bruckner's plays deserve to be better known. Passionate, intense, and vividly theatrical, they harness a bold dramaturgy to the deep conviction that the theater must engage with the world around it. The two plays in this volume are exemplars of Bruckner's method, and in Laurence Senelick's bracing translations they breathe with new life, bringing us Bruckner's unsparing but humane voice in clear, playable, American English. Senelick is a scholar, linguist, and all-around man of the theater. His capacious thought and sharp wit are wonderful complements to Bruckner's compassionate spirit. I look forward to seeing these thrilling new translations in production." —Barry Edelstein, Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director at The Old Globe Theatre

"There isn't another academic theater historian in the world who combines the talent of translator, critic, dramaturg, theater historian, regisseur, actor, and scholar required to annotate these two plays of Ferdinand Bruckner. The introduction sits comfortably next to Stefan Zweig's Die Welt von Gestern as a tribute to several worlds now only a memory. Laurence Senelick is the embodiment of Der Theaterprofessor, and as such stands alone." —Sol Gittleman, Alice and Nathan Gantcher University Professor Emeritus, Tufts University

"This book is a gift to theater lovers and anyone interested in modern German culture. As Laurence Senelick's masterful edition makes clear, Ferdinand Bruckner's plays—with their frank sexuality, world-weary banter, and political alarms—illuminated a world on the verge of catastrophe. They also speak with disturbing eloquence about our own." —Matthew Wilson Smith, author of The Nervous Stage: Nineteenth-Century Neuroscience and the Birth of Modern Theatre