Woyzeck (NHB Modern Plays)

'People like us are unhappy in this world and in the next: if we made it to heaven, we'd have to help make it thunder.' The multi-award-winning Jack Thorne, the playwright behind Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, breathes new life into Georg Büchner's Woyzeck, one of the most extraordinary plays ever written. It's 1980s Berlin. The Cold War rages and the world sits at a crossroads between Capitalism and Communism. On the border between East and West, a young soldier and the love of his life are desperately trying to build a better future for their child. But the cost of escaping poverty is high, and its tragic consequences unfold in this searing tale of the people society leaves behind. Jack Thorne's new version of Woyzeck premieres at the Old Vic Theatre, London, in May 2017, in a production starring John Boyega in the title role.

Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 - 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was also a revolutionary, a natural scientist, and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. He was a major forerunner of the Expressionist school of playwriting of the early 20th century and his work voiced the disillusionment of many artists and intellectuals after World War I. He is now recognised as one of the outstanding figures in German dramatic literature and it is widely believed that, had it not been for his early death, he might have joined such central German literary figures as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller at the summit of their profession. His works include Woyzeck, left incomplete at the time of this death; his first play, Danton's Death, and the comedy Leonce and Lena.