TEHRAN – The Golbang Theater Group from Iran will be performing “Woyzeck” at the Ginger Theater Festival, an international festival of youth running in the Russian city of Tula from April 9 to 13, 2021.

Qasem Tangsirnejad and Mahsa Rahsepar will co-direct the play that will be competing with 10 other productions from Egypt, Greece, India, Estonia, Russia and several other countries. 

German dramatist Georg Buchner wrote “Woyzeck” between 1835 and 1837. It was discovered and published posthumously as Wozzek in 1879 and first performed in 1913. 

The title character is a religious man preoccupied with sin and guilt. An army barber, he endures psychological humiliation by his captain and painful physical experimentation by his doctor to make extra money for Marie, his wife, and their child. Woyzeck is jealous of Marie’s affair with a drum major. Filled with rage, he explodes into violence.

Best known as the libretto for Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck (performed in 1925), the work was published in a revised version in 1922 under its original title, Woyzeck. Both naturalist and expressionist elements added to the work’s continued interest for audiences in the late 20th century.

Buchner was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Buchner.

Buchner’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.

Photo: Thespians perform “Woyzeck” by directors Qasem Tangsirnejad and Mahsa Rahsepar. (Iran Theater)

RM/MMS/YAW