Before Sunrise at Theater Basel

With the world premiere of his first play for the theatre, the social drama «Before Sunrise», the 27-year-old Gerhart Hauptmann achieved instant fame as a playwright in 1889. In his play, Hauptmann presents a social stratum whose rapidly achieved prosperity goes hand in hand with a harder inner nature. Even the supposed advocate of an alternative, solidary way of living together, the social reformer Alfred Loth, proves in the depths of his heart to be cold and without empathy. From a contemporary perspective Hauptmann’s naturalistic drama is a merciless exposure of an inner coarsening on both sides of the political spectrum and in the broader centre of society. These findings – astonishingly contemporary and unsettling at the same time – provide the impetus to discover Hauptmann’s drama afresh.