Woyzeck

Woyzeck is a German play written by Georg Büchner. As an interesting experiment in German language learning, we decided that we would see two different versions of the same German play.  The play is quite well known in Germany because Büchner was a successful German writer and died when he was only 23.

Beautiful entryway of the Staatstheater in Wiesbaden.

Woyzeck and Marie right before he slits her throat in the Wiesbaden version.

We saw the first version in a theater in Wiesbaden (the capital city of the German state of Hessen).  We immediately noticed that over 50% of the audience looked like high school kids.  Thinking that seeing plays on a Thursday night was a strange pastime even for German teens, we asked somebody why there were so many school kids in the audience.  This person explained that Woyzeck is a play many high school students have to read in their German classes so many students go to see the play.
According to Wikipedia,

"Woyzeck deals with the dehumanising effects of doctors and the military on a young man's life. It is often seen as 'working class' tragedy, though it can also be viewed as having another dimension, portraying the 'perennial tragedy of human jealousy' [1]."

With our limited German language skills our understanding of the play was far less sophisticated.  What we could understand is that Woyzeck was some sort of poor, working-class combination of Forest Gump (easily taken advantage of and manipulated by others) and Othello (driven mad with jealousy and murderous) trying to cope with the difficulties of the class-based struggles in his life. 

This net spanned the whole stage and was used by the actors the whole time.

The doctor experimenting on Woyzeck.  Eat your peas.

Marie cheating on Woyzeck with the drum major.  This may or may not have been a rape scene.

Woyzeck and Marie right before he slits her throat in the Thalia theater version

Disposing of the body over a cliff.

Woyzeck drowning himself at the realization of what he did.

The second version we saw was a musical interpretation of the play with music by Tom Waits.  The strange nature of the play, the music, and the modern staging created the most unique theater experience I have ever had.  It was truly weird, and mostly in a good way but also sometimes in a really creepy way.  The video embedded below links to a youtube playlist of the Tom Waits songs from the show.  I caution that listening to this playlist may result in chain smoking, whiskey drinking, and lonesome brooding.