Odon von Horváth Libri

Horváth's setting for this black political farce is a seedy hotel in Central Europe in the 1920s where the only guest is a drunken, ageing nymphomaniac - wealthy and despotic. Under her sole occupancy the hotel is falling apart and sliding even deeper into decadence. There is no future and no hope until a young woman arrives with a fortune to spend. What follows is a riot of confusion and mistaken identities, satirising the despair and futility of a continent poised on the brink of fascism.Horváth (1901-1938) was accidentally killed in Paris after fleeing from the Nazis. The Belle Vue , one of 16 plays, was not performed until 1969. This translation marked the British premiere, in a production by the Actors Touring Company.

'Don't spoil her, Oskar, or you'll pay dear for it. You wouldn't believe what I had to put up with in my marriage. Not because madam, my wife, God bless her, was a vicious-tongued cow, but because I was too decent. Never lose your authority! Keep your distance! Patriarchy, not matriarchy! Keep your head up and your thumbs pressed firmly down. Ave Caesar; morituri te salutant!'Set against the sentimental backdrop of the Vienna Woods and to the distant tune of a Strauss waltz, a community steeped in bigotry concerns itself with love affairs, petty squabbles, jealousies and personal tragedy. Meanwhile society at large, haunted by inflation, goes reeling towards Fascism.This energetic, hugely entertaining epic premi�red in Berlin in 1931 as Nazi forces were gaining in strength.Tales from the Vienna Woods, in this new version, was premi�red at the National Theatre on the Olivier stage in October 2003.

It's another normal day at a small-town station, where a handful of passengers are waiting for the stopping train. If not, how long can he postpone the day of judgment?Christopher Hampton's translation of OEdoen von Horvath's Judgment Day premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in September 2009

Don Juan Comes Back from the War, Figaro Gets Divorced Two modern classics by Austrian dramatist, Ödön von Horváth. Hampton's Don Juan Comes Back from the War was first performed at the Royal National Theatre. Figaro Gets Divorced, in which an aristocratic couple and their two servants are on the run from a revolution, premiered at London's Gate Theatre.

This never-before translated work by a major yet overlooked mid-20th century writer is a brutally funny look at the human comedy on the eve of Europe's decent into Fascism. It tells the tale of a failed used car salesman who wants to live the high life, and so decides to travel by train from Munich to Barecelona to attend the World's Fair — in hopes of meeting a beautiful, rich woman who will provide for his every whim. It's a highly-stylized and, at times, raucously funny tale of the almost-absurd: a dark and satiric look at Europeans, and especially Germans, on the brink of cataclysm. Adrift in their acquisitive desires, they are vulnerable to the propaganda of the State — making this novel brilliantly foresightful in its understanding of politics and human nature at a crucial point in modern history. Ödön von Horváth’s scathing insight, in fact, led to his having to flee the very society he depicted when, living in Berlin, he drew the wrath of the Nazis. And yet this hilarious tour-de-force — written just after his escape, and just before his death in a tragic accident — eschews bitterness for rambunctious perseverance and compassion, and provides ample evidence of why von Horváth deserves renewed appreciation.