Woyzeck at Theater Basel

Georg Büchner’s fragile fragment, one of the most significant and influential dramas in German literature, is based on the case of the soldier and barber Johann Christian Woyzeck who stabbed his lover and was sentenced to death for this act. Büchner was aware of the facts of this historic criminal case about which several legal, medical and psychological reports were prepared. He presents this jealous deed and the acts leading up to it: Woyzeck, «a good fellow and a poor devil» who has been forced down onto the lowest level of society financially, humiliated by his superiors, made an object of study by scientists, is abandoned to the radical lack of empathy from the world around him. And this is what makes him guilty, once his fears, instincts and desires have become obscenely manifest. However, «Woyzeck» transcends the sad single case of one mistreated individual. With «the subject Woyzeck» Büchner investigates the ever valid question of our dependence on social conditions which are beyond our control, of social relations, individual freedom and fate-like determinism.

Authors

• George Buchner
• Mira Rafalowicz
• Noble Shropshire
• Paul Schmidt
• Peter Golub
• Philip Glass