Woyzeck is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. Büchner wrote the play between July and October 1836, yet left it incomplete at his death in February 1837.
The play first appeared in 1877 in a heavily edited version by Karl Emil Franzos and was first performed at the Residence Theatre in Munich on 8 November 1913.
Summary:
Franz Woyzeck, a lonely soldier stationed in a provincial German town, is living with Marie, the mother of his child who is not blessed by the church as the child was born out of wedlock.
Woyzeck earns extra money for his family by performing menial jobs for the Captain and agreeing to take part in medical experiments conducted by the Doctor. At one of these experiments, the Doctor tells Woyzeck that he must eat nothing but peas. Woyzeck's mental health is breaking down and he begins to experience a series of apocalyptic visions. Meanwhile, Marie grows tired of Woyzeck and turns her attentions to a handsome drum major who, in an ambiguous scene taking place in Marie's bedroom, sleeps with her.
With his jealous suspicions growing, Woyzeck confronts the drum major, who beats Woyzeck up and humiliates him. Finally, Woyzeck stabs Marie to death by a pond. While a third act trial is claimed by some, notably A. H. J. Knight and Fritz Bergemann, to have been part of the original conception (what may be the beginning of a courtroom scene survives), the fragment, as left by Büchner, ends with Woyzeck disposing of the knife in the pond while trying to clean himself of the blood.
Since then, Woyzeck has become one of the most influential and most often-performed German plays. Due to its unfinished nature, the play has inspired many diverging adaptations.
The Play:
Theater performance of George Büchner's "Woyzeck" at Portland Community College, 2011.
Director: Patrick Tangredi
Stars: Alex Lenarski, Kate Wyatt, Amber Sparks.
The Film:
1970, Germany, Musical, Classic Opera, Drama
Wozzeck: Toni Blankenheim
Marie: Sena Jurinac
Drum Major: Richard Cassilly
Andres: Peter Haage
Captain: Gerhard Unger
Doctor: Hans Sotin
Workman I: Kurt Moll
Workman II: Franz Grundheber
Idiot: Kurt Marschner
Margret: Elisabeth Steiner
Marie's son: Martina Schumacher
The Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra
The Chorus of the Hamburg State Opera
Conducted by Bruno Maderna
Directed for television by Joachim Hess
Set design: Herbert Kirchhoff
Costumes: Helmut Jürgens
Recorded 1970,
Hamburg State Opera
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