Three Plays: The Weavers / Hannele / The Beaver Coat

by Gerhart Hauptmann, Horst Frenz (Translator), Miles Waggoner (Translator)

Three Plays representative of an important period in twentieth- century drama! A good part of modern drama owes its techniques and its intense awareness of social and psychological problems to the German playwright who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1912. Hauptmann's achievements had great influence on many outstanding writers, among them Eugene O'Neill, who felt a special indebtedness to the European master. These three plays are superb examples of Hauptmann's wide range and offer readers an opportunity to become acquainted with the work of a supremely accomplished writer. The Weavers, perhaps his most famous play, reveals the bitter lives of the wretched handweavers of the 1840s and their abortive rebellion. Hennele centers on an abused, motherless child, abandoned to a poorhouse, who creates her own fantasy world of dreams and legends. The Beaver Coat is a delightful satire about a washerwoman who quickly learns that she cannot advance very far through honest labor alone, and proceeds accordingly. Titles of related interest from Waveland Goethe, Gotz von A Play (ISBN 9780881335415); Novalis, Henry von A Novel (ISBN 9780881335743); and Plenzdorf, The New Sufferings of Young W. (ISBN 9780881338911).

Genres: Plays, Drama, German Literature, Classics

218 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.

Life Hauptmann's first drama, Before Dawn (1889) inaugurated the naturalistic movement in modern German literature. It was followed by The Reconciliation (1890), Lonely People (1891) and The Weavers (1892), a powerful drama depicting the rising of the Silesian weavers in 1844 for which he is best known outside of Germany.
Hauptmann's subsequent work includes the comedies Colleague Crampton (1892), The Beaver Coat (1893), and The Conflagration (1901), the symbolist dream play The Assumption of Hannele (1893), and an historical drama Florian Geyer (1895). He also wrote two tragedies of Silesian peasant life, Drayman Henschel (1898) and Rose Bernd (1903), and the dramatic fairy-tales The Sunken Bell (1896) and And Pippa Dances (1906).
Hauptmann's marital life was difficult and in 1904 he divorced his wife. That same year he married the actress Margarete Marschalk, who had borne him a son four years earlier. The following year he had an affair with the 17-year-old Austrian actress Ida Orloff, whom he met in Berlin when she performed in his play The Assumption of Hannele. Orloff inspired characters in several of Hauptmann's works and he later referred to her as his muse.
In 1911 he wrote The Rats. In 1912, Hauptmann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "primarily in recognition of his fruitful, varied and outstanding production in the realm of dramatic art."
During the First World War Hauptmann was a pacifist. In this period of his career he wrote several gloomy historical-allegorical plays, such as The Bow of Odysseus (1914), The White Saviour (1912–17), and Winter Ballade (1917). After the war, his dramatic abilities appeared to diminish. He wrote two full-length plays that are similar to the early successes: Dorothea Angermann (1926) and Before Sunset (1932). He remained in Germany after Hitler's Machtergreifung and survived the bombing of Dresden. His last work was the Atriden-Tetralogie (1942–46). His works in German were published by S. Fischer Verlag.
Hauptmann died at the age of 83 at his home in Agnetendorf (now Jagniątków, Poland) in 1946. Since the Polish communist administration did not allow Hauptmann's relatives to bury him in Agnetendorf (although even the Soviet military government had recommended this), his body was transported in an old cattle wagon to occupied Germany more than a month after his death. He was buried near his cottage on Hiddensee.
Under Wilhelm II Hauptmann enjoyed the reputation of a radical writer, on the side of the poor and outcasts. During the Weimar Republic (1918–33) he enjoyed the status of the literary figurehead of the new order, and was even considered for the post of state president. Under Hitler he kept his distance from the regime, but never publicly criticized it. This, and the fact that (unlike so many writers and academics) he stayed in Germany, was strongly held against him after the war. A superb collected edition of his works appeared in the 1960s, and stimulated some impressive studies of his work (e.g. those by Peter Sprengel), but the tide of critical and public opinion remained negative. A few of his plays are still revived from time to time, but otherwise he is neglected. He was certainly an uneven writer, but at his best (as in 'The Weavers', his novel 'The Fool in Christ Emmanuel Quint', and the Novellen 'The Heretic of Soana' and 'Das Meerwunder') he can arguably rank with the best of his German contemporaries.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhart_...

Reviews

[Rykia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of these three, I read The Weavers. In the introduction to the book as a whole, "The Weavers" is described as lacking a fully developed plot given how episodic the action is, but that is the plot. It's episodic because Hauptmann is a naturalist playwright who was trying to tell a story over a span of classes and tie their stories together cohesively which he does quite nicely. This particular translation of the play is easy to read, follow, and understand. The story in the play is about the tragedy associated with the class of weavers in Germany during the 1840s and Hauptmann manages to write it in such a way that he condemns neither the poor nor the bourgeoise but simply leaves it to the audience to choose their own sides.

[Scott Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found “The Weavers” to be the most poignant play in this collection by 1912 Nobel laureate Gerhart Hauptmann. It is a story which tells of the plight and poverty of workers (weavers) in the Silesia section of Germany; the area where Hauptmann was born in 1864. The Weavers is a revolutionary play, one wherein the wealthy are seen as predators, and the church is seen as impotent in dealing with the social inequality described in this play. The play is perhaps a warning, a prelude to a much greater revolution which would soon rock northern Europe.

[Ray Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Weavers is a fine price of Naturalism. Characters forced by their misery into blind rage. Hannele is one of the most sensitively written works of art I have ever read. Innocence crushed in a savagely petty world with delicate beauty as just a sweet hallucination. I didn’t like the Beaver Coat. The jokes just didn’t land for me, but the characterization is strong.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyrical but entirely christian and dated. These plays need to be adapted for modern times, as the structures, ideas and symbols are striking, at least as far as Hannele goes.

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