You could do insane twenty hours shifts in theatre. You could be mother of ten children. You could be toughest whore on the block. You contain all possibilities. You are the ultimate cliche of youth's incredible potential. Promiscuous, pitiless and bored, six sexually entangled medical students restlessly wander in and out of a boarding house, cramming, drinking, taunting, spying. Freder sets about savagely experimenting with the young, pretty maid, with half an eye on his former lover Desiree, a wild, disillusioned aristocrat. Petrell abandons Marie for the ruthless underdog Irene. Marie doesn't waste any time weeping - Desiree wants her. Bourgeois existence or suicide. There are no other choices. Vienna, 1923. A discontented post-war generation diagnose youth to be their sickness and do their best to destroy it. A shocking, erotically charged play by Austrian writer Ferdinand Bruckner, presented in a compelling new version by Martin Crimp.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Von Der Verheissung Des Krieges Und Den Forderungen An Den Frieden: Morgenrote Der Sozialitat Ferdinand Bruckner G. Muller, 1915 History; Military; World War I; History / Military / World War I; War; World War, 1914-1918

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If a theater-goer in Weimar Berlin were asked to name the best living German playwright, the answer would not be Bertolt Brecht or Georg Kaiser or Arnolt Bronnen. It would be Ferdinand Bruckner. And if asked, who is this Bruckner?, the Berliner would be at a loss to give you any information. In the late 1920s, the first two plays attributed to Bruckner, Youth Is a Sickness and Criminals, were "hot tickets," but only gradually was the pseudonymous author identified. Bruckner continues to be an understudied figure in the Weimar figure, and this updated translation of two of his most well-known plays will be the definitive version for scholars and readers interested in better understanding his legacy. Youth Is a Sickness (1924) is an important document of the "lost generation" that grew up during the first World War, born in the aftermath of cataclysm, devoid of hope and ideals, lost in sex and drugs. If Youth is a compact, claustrophobic study in juvenile derangement, Criminals (1926) is a panoramic survey of social interaction and legal injustice in the Weimar Republic. Its format is highly original: a three-story apartment building and a Palace of Justice with four courtrooms, in which simultaneous action allows for ironic comment on the various cases. The central example is a murder case in which fate allows a slick "lady's man" to go to the gallows. Others involve homosexual blackmail (the first commercially successful play to be so explicit), a failed double suicide, theft, and abortion. With an introduction and annotation by renowned theater and German scholar, Lawrence Senelick, these two plays will position Bruckner as a prime example of what we now call a "public intellectual," a man whose life was devoted to reflecting on the fate of Germany, humane values, and the past, present, and future of a troubled century. Like many of his contemporaries, he was excited by the possibility of the stage to address issues of war and peace, social and political problems, and the fate of contemporary youth with its lack of ideal and eternal nostalgia.