Suvarna Garge (Editor)

The Son (play)

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Written by
  
Walter Hasenclever

First performance
  
1916

Genre
  
Expressionism

Subject
  
Intergenerationality

Date premiered
  
1916 (1916)

Playwright
  
Walter Hasenclever

Original language
  
German language

Place premiered
  
Dresden

Characters
  
The Son The Tutor The Friend The Fräulein The Father Cherubim Von Tuchmeyer Prince Scheitel Adrienne Police Inspector

Setting
  
The present (1914), over 3 days

The Son (German: Der Sohn) is a five-act Expressionist play by the German playwright Walter Hasenclever. It was the first self-proclaimed, full-length Expressionist play to be produced, though its dramatic structure is more or less realistic. It takes as its subject the conflict between the generations and a rejection of the world in general by the young. It is a semi-autobiographical work.

It was written in 1912, first published in 1914, and first performed in 1916 at the Albert-Theater in Dresden, although Hasenclever had read the play at the literary cabaret Das Gnu in early 1914. Ernst Deutsch played the Son to great acclaim.

The play ends with the Son's parricide of his father, after which he "strides triumphantly over his father's corpse into a future full of glorious potential."

References

The Son (play) Wikipedia