ثلاث مسرحيات: موت دانتون / ليونس ولينا / فويسك

by Georg Büchner, عبد الغفار مكاوي (Translator)

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Genres: Plays, Theatre, German Literature, Classics, Drama, Fiction, Literature

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Karl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Georg Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany. It is widely believed that, but for his early death, he might have attained the significance of such central German literary figures as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller.

Reviews

[Ali Ahmadi]

ترجمه‌ی انگلیسی سه نمایشنامه از بوشنر که وُیتسِک رو از بین‌شون خوندم (بیدگل و ققنوس به فارسی هم ترجمه کردن). کوتاه، ناقص و پاره‌پاره‌. عمر نویسنده به تموم کردنش قد نداده. اما نکته‌ش همینجاست که تو همه‌ی این سال‌ها عین قالبی شل و ول برای اقتباس‌های آزاد عمل کرده: معروف‌تراش یکی «پستچی» مهرجوییه مال ۱۹۷۲ و یکی ویتسک ورنر هرتسوگ برای ۷ سال بعدتر.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a couple of methods of eating candy like Skittles. One method is to eat all the goods ones first and be damned on the less desirable ones at the end. On the flip side, you can eat all your least favorite first and slowly build toward your favorites at the end. And of course, you can just grab a handful and damn the torpedos. I'm in the second group. I'll eat all the green skittles first, and then the yellows, oranges, purple and finally the red (which, frankly, are well worth the wait). My wife is in the first boat, leaving me a pile of greens at the end. Or she'll just wait until I've eaten the bad ones and then steal the good ones away from me. But that is a whole other issue.

Tying that into Buchner. I bought this book for Woyzeck and Woyzeck alone. I had no real interest in the other plays. But, I also don't like leaving reading material out there. So, I decided to read the whole thing. And much like my skittles, I started from the start, leaving the last story (Woyzeck) for the end. I was hopeful for three reds. Or at least something comparable. In this case, I got an Orange, a Green and a Red.

So, Danton's Death - good stuff. a tale of the French Revolution. Outside of turning them Jacobins into a bunch of whoremongers, which is entirely possible as they are French, I found it a compelling walk through a historically significant moment. I like the flow of the story and found myself invested in the story - including a foray into a wikipedia web (I had no idea who Danton was - either never heard of him or he's lost in the recesses of my brain). It got a little slow in the middle, which was a common complaint per the introduction. Overall a good interpretation of a day's snippet in the revolution from the moral high-ground.

Leonce and Lena. "A black comedy." That's the official label. Frankly, this was garbage. This was definitely a lime green skittle stuck in the middle of my pile. I found nothing here appealing or enjoyable. It was a total slog and not worth the read.

Woyzeck. Lots of anticipation on this one (see below). And, somewhat shockingly, it met the expectations and exceeded them. Just a great story, well done and (via translation) understandable, which is more than I can say about its predecessor. The only piece I really didn't understand were the peas, although the epilogue cleared that up. Highly recommend this one. More than meets the expectations. Little commentary on the story itself. (spoilers) Man loves woman, Man harassed by boss/doctor, Woman gets frisky, Man finds out, Man kills woman (it's like a reverse Wives with Knives). The minutia of life. As interesting as public figures like Robespierre and Danton may be, this snippets of the minutia of life are simply more interesting. I suppose this is why people love reality TV...or did before the Kardashians ruined it for the rest of us. I digress. Woyzeck is only 25 pages. But it flew by. You can pretty much tell how much I like something by how quickly I read it. L&L was 30 pages and took me three commutes. Woyzeck, less than 1 full. If you can manage to find this, it's worth the hour of your life (just skip L&L).

Beyond the tales, the story of Buchner is interesting. the fact that he died at 23, yet had four publications, was a doctor and well versed in Shakespeare, Goethe and others. Not to mention very active in politics. I realize he wasn't wasting large swatches of his time watching Saved By the Bell, but where did he find the time? Dear God was the man productive. At 23, I was just discovering that work was not as much fun as college and essentially drinking away my salary (thanks for free living Mom and Dad!). Regarding his style - I liked the plays in general. But, he has a major propensity for scene changes. In some cases, a new scene would have two lines which seemed hardly connected to the rest of the tale. A little strange. Seems like he was never content to "make due" with the present scene. I wonder what stage directors do with this. He also has a shit-ton of characters. In all three plays he seems like his goal is to employ as many actors as possible. Oh, and he dropped a Tristram Shandy reference in there. That's like the fourth Shandy reference I've stumbled across. Someday I'll finish that debacle.

Okay, so why Woyzeck? Tom Waits is one of my favorite musicians. Back in the 90's he wrote the music for an interpretation of the play Woyzeck in Denmark. In 2001, he put out an album "Blood Money" of the music from the play. Back in the 2000's when I was killing time at work, I started tracking expenses, adding notes to a piece of paper I kept with me in my pocket. To that paper, I would add books I was interested in reading or music to illegally download, etc. Every once in a while, the paper would get shredded and I'd need to copy everything over to a new page. Once I picked up Blood Money, Woyzeck was added to the paper. I must have copied Woyzeck over and over and over onto new little bits of paper. Never caught wind of it anywhere. I don't think I ever checked the library, so shame on me. Anyway, the Monday after Christmas on my two hour lunch, I went to Book-off and there staring at me was a copy of Victor Price's translation of Woyzeck. I nearly lost my shit. Was big time excited to add it to my pile. It'd only been 14 years of tracking it down. And only for a buck.

One of my favorite parts of the story was picking out lyrics and themes from Blood Money. I can definitely tie in some of the pieces of Another's Man Vine and Green Grass. And, Misery is the River of the World clearly ties into Woyzeck general demeanor. Besides Blood Money, there is a story told by the grandmother (one of those random, "why is this here" scenes) which is almost word for word "Bedtime story" from Mr. Waits' Orphans disc. Who knew he was plagiarizing Buchner.

Overall - great experience getting Woyzeck off my list. For the record, read it in 30 minutes. The others, eh. Hence the 4 stars. A 3 star for Denton, 1 star for Leonce and 5 for Woyzeck. The introduction and Buchner history bumps the average to a 4. For the record, my local library had this (although not this version). Damn it.

[Amr Mohamed · Rating 1 out of 5]

يعني احلي مسرحية فيهم وفارقة عن الباقي كتير هي موت دانتون وقيمتها بنجمة ونص متخيلين الباقي عامل ازاي

[Kendall McClain · Rating 3 out of 5]

I LOVE Danton’s death. I like Woyzeck. And Leonce and Lena was definitely a play that was in this as well. Hard to rate as a whole.

Though, Dantons death would get 5 stars. Very impactful and relevant.

[Mandel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read these works mainly for the purposes of a close study of Paul Celan's "The Meridian", where (because it was a speech he gave on the occasion of being awarded the Büchner prize) makes reference to Büchner's works. Prior to this, I'd only been familiar with the magnificent Woyzeck, and this only because I'm a fan of Werner Herzog's film adaptation of the play.

All of these plays are worth reading, though Leonce and Lena probably wouldn't have sparked much interest in me, had it not been for my desire to understand Celan's essay. It has its moments, but runs out of steam quite quickly after the first act. Danton's Death, in contrast, is engaging and timely. It deals with the titular character's Hamlet-like inability to act in the face of charismatic political ideology (including his own) run amok, an inaction that is caused, in part, by the sedative pleasures in which he indulges far too much. Because of this, it brought to mind a lot of what's going on in contemporary American politics, dazed as we often are by the strange pleasures of streaming media and the empty catharsis of social media squabbling, all while the world burns around us.

And then there's Woyzeck. Having seen and loved Herzog's film, I couldn't help but imagine Woyzeck as Klaus Kinski. Does his brilliant performance of the character make it impossible for me to see the Woyzeck that is simply there on the page? Maybe, but Büchner writes plays like Shakespeare insofar as stage directions and other authorial insertions are very sparse, allowing readers, directors, and performers a great deal of freedom to mold the characters' words in many different thematic directions. So, for me, Herzog's Woyzeck just is Woyzeck. The play itself, though, is rich enough with possibilities that I'm definitely going to look into other adaptations, including Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck (yes, I'm willing to torture myself through an opera's worth of twelve-tone music, which I otherwise usually avoid), as well as a recent South African adaptation I ran into on YouTube which sets the play in South Africa, makes many of the characters black, and uses puppetry to perform the characters.

[Gastjäle · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Nicht die richtige Ausgabe)

Büchner ist zweifellos kraftig: seine Sprache ist schicksalhaft, höhnisch und angstvoll. Sie ist auch sehr rätselhaft, und die Zeile der Figuren bleiben manchmal ziemlich unklar; Ausdrücke von ihren persönlichen Elend. Die Figuren Büchners sind zudem in einer ganz modernen Weise von sich und der Welt entfremdet, und sie versuchen, in ihren Gefühle und ihren Gedanken sehr erkennbar zu orientieren. Es ist nur so, dass meine Deutschkenntnisse nicht noch auf der Ebene sind, Büchner genug zu genießen, weil seine Figuren richtig spontan und inkonsequent zu sprechen scheinen. Außerdem bräuchte man viele Anmerkungen für Dantons Tod, ob man nicht vertraut mit der Französischen Revolution ist. In der Tat, Woyzeck war das Einziges, ich ordentlich genießen könnte – und das dank Herzog und Berg.

[Carloesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Georg Buchner e Roberto Bolano (un parallelo audace).

E’ dopo aver letto quel che dice Roberto Bolano nella sua “Ultima Intervista” (in pubblicazione in questi giorni in Italia, con un’anticipazione di qualche pagina da parte di “Repubblica”) che mi è venuta voglia di andare a ripescare questo libro tra i miei scaffali, riscorrerlo, anche se fugacemente, e scriverne una breve recensione.

Buchner muore a 24 anni lasciandoci poco, pochissimo. Il suo “Teatro” è tutto qui. Woyzeck è anche incompiuto. Ma Bolano si chiede che cosa sarebbe potuto diventare se fosse campato ancora, che cosa sarebbe stato capace di scrivere a trent’anni, concludendo amaramente che non potremo saperlo mai (così come non sapremo mai cosa sarebbe stato capace di scrivere Bolano a 60, dopo “il suo” capolavoro incompiuto che è “2666”).
Sappiamo che ha scritto 3 piccoli magistrali pezzi di teatro in un solo paio di anni. Una tragedia sulla disillusione dalla rivoluzione e dall’ideale politico (La morte di Danton). Una leggera commedia sul vuoto, quello lasciato dal tramonto degli ideali, quello che segue le categorie aprioristiche, quello che giocano i “i ruoli” imposti dalla Società e dal costume (Leonce e Lena). Infine il frammento di quello che avrebbe dovuto essere il suo capolavoro (Woyzeck), dove un umile barbiere vede gli spettri della propria gelosia materializzarsi fino a indurlo all’omicidio, trascinato dalle forze oscure della notte, quando quelle del giorno non sono che vani e vacui discorsi.

Cosa è che può accomunare Buchner e Bolano? (mi sono chiesto). Forse è il riuscire ad essere stati entrambi cantori di una generazione sconfitta (anche se a due secoli di distanza), illusa dagli ideali della rivoluzione, della poesia, della gioventù, rapidamente disillusa ed assalita da un senso di inutilità. E da quello di un vuoto da dover riempire (paradossalmente) con la morte. Quella propria o quella altrui (Danton tra le due sceglie la prima piuttosto che seminare l'altra, Robespierre invece non ha dubbi sulla giustizia implacabile della seconda; anche Leonce e Lena sognano la propria, ma vengono fermati dai propri alter-ego; Woyzeck invece uccide l’amata, ma conscio in quell’atto di annientare se stesso).

Entrambi gli autori, pur se in età diversa, troveranno la propria per malattia, nel pieno della loro stagione di creatività letteraria ed artistica. Lasciandoci nel dubbio di quali ulteriori vette avrebbero potuto raggiungere.

[Russell Bittner · Rating 1 out of 5]

“…only I don’t know who I am — which by the way shouldn’t surprise anybody, as I haven’t the remotest idea what I’m talking about, indeed I don’t even know that I don’t know, which makes it highly probable that somebody else is doing the talking and I’m only an arrangement of pipes and bellows” (spoken by Valerio in Leonce and Lena (p. 101).

I believe this snippet of dialogue pretty much sums up Büchner’s literary contribution.

Despite what Victor Price (translator) writes in the Introduction, and despite what I know of Georg Büchner’s tragically short-lived career (he died at the age of only 23), I couldn’t find anything of value in these three works. To me, the dialogue merely sounded illogical and disjointed — and represented, at best, an effort to dazzle with words.

Georg Büchner was no dummie; that much we know. And while I understand that theatrical plays are meant to be played in order to be properly appreciated, one can still evaluate a playwright’s talents on the page. I just didn’t see any here — and yet I’m more than willing to say that this failing to find genius in Büchner’s work was my failure as a reader rather than his as a writer.

RRB
01/02/14
Brooklyn, NY

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extraordinary. All three plays are very fine indeed and all in different ways. Danton's Death is a grand historical epic with a cast of many characters, profound philosophical speeches in the mouths of its main protagonists and a wealth of incident and detail. Leonce and Lena is a strange comedy that is romantic but fey and has a more ironic core than might at first be apparent.

Woyzeck is a remarkable play in every way. It feels like a 20th Century work that just happens to have been written in 1837. It's the earliest example I know of in that rare set of works that were written in the 19th Century but are absolutely like modern literature. It was unfinished at the time of Buchner's death but enough remains to form a complete and coherent masterpiece. It is just a shame that a fourth play, Pietro Aretino, has been lost.

Considering the young age of Buchner when he wrote these brilliant plays, his achievement is even more considerable.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woyzeck and Danton's Tod read for class. Danton's death has some surprisingly relevant and potent quotations for life in corona-times, considering it was written about the execution of French revolution leader Georg Danton. I don't think his character is the only tragic one.
Woyzeck has captured readers (and many directors) attention up to present day. Is it fashionable? Or continually relevant? German tragedy finally provides a working-class protagonist, does their struggle feel more real and tangible? Or, perhaps it's because the play is unfinished. The true ending can be speculated on but never answered.
Both plays proto-marxist in essence, and fantastically written. If only Buchner had lived beyond 23!!

[Victoria Carlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Georg Büchner, has always been an interesting playwright, in my opinion. I think it stems from the history and his short-lived life after dying at just age 23.

I am to focus in on Woyzeck through this short review. A remarkable play that was found incomplete with no order or assumption. A plethora of authors and playwrights have since 'finished' the play. However, the play itself, due to in-completion, allows for directors to have a variety of freedoms. I see it lending itself well to Brechtian styles of theater.

Woyzeck looks at some important themes. We follow a working class man who is paid to take part in medical experiments, in which he can eat nothing but peas. His life is turbulent. He is controlled by military personnel and has reason to suspect that his partner, Marie, is having an affair. Woyzeck looks at the ultimately dehumanizing effects of social power and how it drives man to madness.

The play itself is open to much interpretation, however, I believe that this is an important play to read. It is often considered the first truly modern play, and in my opinion, is poetically triumphant. Woyzeck is a staple of modern theater, with a story that is still applicable to the injustices of today's modern world.

[James Violand · Rating 1 out of 5]

“Virtually unknown until the end of the nineteenth century, the plays have found an important place in modern international repertory.” This excerpt from the back cover should warn the reader. Why is it that pitifully poor and appalling plays are resurrected by marginal theater directors long after the death of unsuccessful and demented playwrights? And why are the reviews by these directors’ sycophantic critics persuasive? The reader can easily recognize the hokum perpetrated by this book’s editor and the inferior plays of his dead demigod. This is a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Nothing whatever redeeming here.

[Eric Hinkle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Woyzeck is a very interesting play, uniquely written, but ultimately feels incomplete. It works much better as an expanded musical (by Tom Waits). I couldn't finish Danton's Death, but Leonce and Lena was quite amusing if completely inconsequential. Still, I skipped several paragraphs because I can only take so much empty humor.

In a bizarre act of self-sabotage, Oxford University Press chose a movie still from Herzog's Woyzeck for the cover, wherein Klaus Kinski is grabbing Eva Mattes' breast in a clear act of sexual assault. Great way to alienate a large section of the book-buying populace. I didn't see the cover when I ordered it but I was embarrassed to read this on the train.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

lol

[Riccardo]

(La morte di Danton)

[anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was for a class; i only had to read Woyzeck but it was really really great. i cannot wait to dissect it, write some essays about it, and to discuss it more as a class. really really interesting.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting circumstances in these plays

[Angel Mouser · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I liked Leonce and Lena the best out of the three plays, but none were super enthralling or compelling to me.

[Citrom Citrom]

Excellent.

[Bambee Hendricks · Rating 5 out of 5]

3 plays of significance to time. I mostly enjoyed Woyzeck.

[Michela]

Da NON leggere se non si vuole pensare all'assurdo.

[Lizzy Siddal (Lizzy’s Literary Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded to 4

[Marco Pizzoni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leonce und Lena is peak. All in all a very lighthearted read, shame he died before he could complete his works.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

*omg:* i thot i'd B reading some olde plays from yesterCENTURY, but these R smart, funny & TIMELY! go read! -DIDN'T read Leonce & Lena, but maybe later. borrows from Goethe & Shakespeare; fun!

[Sepideh Tafazzoli · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is no God; because either God made the world or He did not. If He did not, then the world contains its own origin and there is no God, because God is only God in that He embraces the origin of all being. However, God can not have created the world, because either the creation is eternal like God, or it has a beginning. If the latter is true, God must have created it at a specific point in time; in other words, having been quiescent for an eternity, He must have become active, that is He must have suffered a change in himself and become subject to the concept of time. But both concepts—change and time—are in conflict with the nature of God. Therefore God cannot have created the world. Now since we know that the world, or at least our own consciousness, exists, and since we know from what I've just said that our consciousness must have its origin either in itself or in something else that is not God, there can be no God. Q.E.D.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buchner’s plays are a hidden treasure – at least to English readers. I bought the book on a whim, but what rewards it offers: Rich, deeply felt language, a despairing beauty, low humor, characters trying make sense of the absurdity and bitterness of life.

The Shakespearian influence is obvious – the well-turn phrases and metaphors, the mix of comedy and tragedy, the struggle against nihilism. It’s all here except the verse. With it, though, is a very modern sense of the absurdity of life. There is no god to fall back on. And though people act as if Eliot and Pound discovered the absurdities of human life, Buchner powerfully presented them in his plays – almost a hundred years prior.

Buchner died at 23, so we can only guess what he might have done with 20 or 30 more years of writing. These works are gems, though rough and each is incomplete in its own way. What a shame.


Danton’s Death – **** This is a wonderful and vibrant work brimming with interesting characters and beautiful language. I hesitate to call it a play because the scope is so big, the cast so large and its breadth so wide, it’s hard to imagine how it could fit on a stage.

The language, in Price’s translation, is skillfully woven. The work is dense in memorable rhetorical phrases and metaphors, such as:

- You’re a suicide, a shadow murdering the man who cast it and itself into the bargain. (p. 16)
- Every comma is a sabre stroke, every full-stop a severed head. (p. 54)
- How long must the footprint of liberty be the graves of men? (p. 58)
- Are we children, roasted in the hot Moloch-arms of the world and teased with rays of light so that the gods may enjoy their laughter? (p. 67)

How Shakespearian the language is – and the rest of the play – in its dark viewpoint and rich metaphors. In a single play, Buchner has the injustice of Lear, the madness of Ophelia, the nihilism of Hamlet, the flaws of Richard II, the majestic sweep of the Henry VI histories, the crowd scenes of Julius Caesar, the comedy of the Porter, and more.

If the work has any flaws, they are flaws of excess. The play is simply too packed. Too many characters, the language is rich but excessive in places, the plot is exceedingly complex, too many subplots that end up not being fully developed (like Lucile’s madness), too many classical allusions, etc. Buchner left no strand unfollowed, no thought unsaid, no phrase unturned.

And yet in this great and sprawling work, the only thing it does not have in excess is action. It’s very talky/philosophical.

But it is a wonderful work, well worth reading. I highly recommend it. Shakespeare lovers will enjoy the rich language, the historic sweep, the vivid characters and the dark, irreverent view of life.


Leonce and Lena – *** This play, on the surface, seems like a light romantic comedy, but there is a nihilistic vein pulsing beneath it. The lovers are attracted not by their looks or charisma, but by the despair and dissatisfaction with life. What a strange mix, reminding me of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.

Is this a play about the absurdity of life, or the ennui of wealth, or fatalism, or a mechanistic world, etc. So many thoughts for such a slim play. They outshine the characters and the plot.

And whole sections seem to be missing. In one scene Lena is running away from Leonce, in the next he announces he’s marrying her, and in the next they are married. How does he convince her to marry him? We can only guess. The beginning of the play seems to lack a connection to the end, and the middle to the beginning.

Yet it is overflowing with Buchner’s beautiful, despairing lines. What a grimly sweet view on life. And the reader is well rewarded for that.

Woyzeck – *** This play is so slight it’s almost non-existent. It’s not much more than a random collection of scenes and characters with little development and no clear ending. Yet this is Buchner’s most admired and most discussed work.

The rough, episodic nature of the play is alluring. And Buchner’s rich language, along with the grotesquely disturbed character of Woyzeck breathe life into these pieces. There is a haunting quality about it.

The translator claims that Buchner said the play was almost done. That’s hard to believe. (The reference from Buchner is that he has a play that will be done soon. The assumption is that it’s Woyzeck.)

One can only wonder what Buchner would have done with these bare limbs.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have much experience with Woyzeck (a five star-plus play), but I picked this up to read Danton's Death. While it's not Woyzeck, it's well worth reading, if just for Marion's lovely, melty soul speech in I,v and Saint-Just's dark (and so modern) justification for revolution in II, vii: "What matter whether they die of an epidemic or of the Revolution? -- The strides of humanity are slow, one can count them only in centuries; behind each one rise the graves of generations....Is it not understandable then than in an age where the pace of history is increased, all the more people should find themselves -- out of breath?" (trans. Carl Richard Mueller) Love that. My edition is from the early 60s and was quite excited to compare to Buchner's work (from the 1820-30s) to "our own" Theater of the Absurd. Definitely, but what's so good about Buchner's plays are how they're still fresh. Expand definitions of revolution and Danton's Death is perfectly applicable.

[Scherzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

que se yo! y recomponiendo trozo a trozo la venus de médico entre las busconas del palais rotal; trabajando el mosaico como el dice. el cielo sabrá en que tercio debe estar ahora. es una lástima que la naturaleza haya despedazado la belleza como hizo meses con su hermano, par guardar los fragmentos entre tanto cuerpo.

cantón tus labios tiñen ojos
es ridículo como se me vigilan los pensamientos unos a otros.

somos paquidermos, nos tendemos las manos pero no sirve de nada. quita mujer, quita, para torpes nuestros sentidos. ¿conocerse? tendríamos que levantarnos la tapa de los sesos y arrancar nos mutuamente los pensamientos de entre las fibras del cerebro.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only read Woyzeck, which remains one of my favorite plays I've had to study. A man goes insane because all he eats are peas (not really, but I suppose that is one excuse) and submits himself to endless and ridiculous medical studies. The scenes are fragmentary, so we don't know which came first, making for liberal interpretations as different productions mix and match depending on what they choose to emphasize. The German movie with Klaus Kinski is excellent.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book I had a very complicated and very German relationship with. Danton's Death (the play I studied) has many highs of philosophical brilliance, ambivalent paralysis, and puddles that may or may not be windows into another dimension. It's a good play to have a torrid, deathly affair with. Wonderful tragedy and wonderful hookers, and even a cameo by Tom Paine!