Tales from the Vienna Woods (play)

Tales from the Vienna Woods (1931) is the most famous play by Austro-Hungarian writer Ödön von Horváth (1901–1938). It was premièred in Berlin in 1931 and has been filmed several times. Before the première, the German writer and playwright, Carl Zuckmayer nominated the play for the Kleist Prize, which it won, the most significant literary award of the Weimar Republic. The play's title is a reference to the waltz, Tales from the Vienna Woods by Johann Strauss II. Horvarth's play premièred at the Deutsches Theatre, Berlin. Written in the late 1920s during the period of catastrophic unemployment and the Great Depression, the play is a key work of modern drama, described by Erich Kaestner as "a Viennese folk play accompanied by Viennese folk songs". It is a bitter satire about the mendacity and brutality of the petite-bourgeoisie, named ironically after the forested highlands near the Austrian capital that are so idealised in the waltz. In the play, Viennese 'Gemütlichkeit' or 'coziness' becomes a hollow phrase; the tragic, brutal story of the sweet girl Marianne and the deeply conventional butcher Oskar reflects the hardships and anxieties of the late 1920s during the global economic crisis.

Contents

• Film
• Opera
• References