Woyzeck

Drama Classics: The World’s Great Plays at a Great Little Price

One of the most performed and influential plays in German theatre, Georg Buchner’s Woyzeck is a modern classic that remains frighteningly relevant today.

Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a provincial German town, is bullied by his superiors and starved by the regiment’s doctor in the name of scientific experiment. His only pleasures in life are his lover Marie and their innocent young son. But when Woyzeck learns that Marie has been unfaithful with the regiment’s handsome Drum Major, he murders his lover in a fit of rage and hopelessness.

Based on a real-life murder trial that took place in Germany in the 1820s, Woyzeck was written in 1837 but not staged until 1913.

This English translation by Gregory Motton is published in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series. The edition includes an introduction by Kenneth McLeish, a chronology and suggestions for further reading.