Toller: Plays Two

Ernst Toller was a formative figure in the development of theatrical modernism. These stage-worthy new translations of Toller's plays (The Machine Breakers, The German Hinkemann, The Revenge of the Lover Scorned, Wotan Unbound, Day of the Proletariat and German Revolution) capture the spirit of artistic and political combustion amidst war, revolution, imprisonment, Nazi persecution, exile and the Holocaust.

Ernst Toller was a German left-wing playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, and was imprisoned for five years for his actions. He wrote several plays and poetry during that period, which gained him international renown. They were performed in London and New York as well as Berlin. In 1933 Toller was exiled from Germany after the Nazis came to power. He did a lecture tour in 1936-1937 in the United States and Canada, settling in California for a while before going to New York. He joined other exiles there. Struggling financially and depressed at learning his brother and sister had been sent to a concentration camp in Germany, he committed suicide in May 1939.