Danton’s Death – Georg Büchner

Stegi — Onassis Foundation, Main Stage
From January 20 to February 18, 2011
The performance was reprised at the International Büchner Festival in Giessen, Germany on June 29, 2013, with Haris Charalambous replacing Dimitris Mylonas and Giorgos Christodoulou replacing Efthymis Pappas.

Danton’s Death, Georg Büchner’s first play, which he wrote in 1835 at the age of 21 while facing persecution for his revolutionary activities, did not find its way to the stage until 1902. However, it was Max Reinhardt’s production in 1916 that established it, albeit with a delay of almost a century, as one of the classic works of European drama. Since then, some of the most important directors of the 20th century, from Giorgio Strehler, Jean Villard, and Erwin Piscator to Klaus-Michael Grüber and Christoph Marthaler, have attempted to negotiate its many twists and turns. In Greece, Danton’s Death was one of the first plays staged by Fotos Politis at the then-new National Theatre in 1933, showing particular care for lighting and crowd scenes for the time. In Büchner’s work, theatre becomes the ideal medium for depicting the tragedy of politics. In the play’s brief scenes, political reflection, debates, cynical political action, and, above all, the volatile judgment of the masses collaborate to illuminate the different tendencies, multiple motives, and political assessments that make up the mosaic of the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror. Revolutionary theatrical writing becomes a valued tool of political reflection as it highlights the dialectic of History.

Source: Stegi — Onassis Foundation