The Prince of Homburg
Donmar, until 4 September
Danton’s Death
Olivier, in rep until 14 October
Welcome to London. This month we’re hosting the world’s very first, but probably not its last, Useless German Playwright Festival. Here’s a scribbler you may not have heard of. Heinrich von Kleist, born in 1777, angered his Prussian family by quitting the army and setting up as a dramatist. After an energetic start he decided he had better things to do with his life and killed himself.
His final play, The Prince of Homburg, shows that he still had much to learn before his premature exit. It takes him an hour to tell us that an excitable young general, Homburg, has fluffed his orders during a victory over the Swedes, been charged with disobedience and sentenced to death. The second hour examines Homburg’s culpability while the winsome young madcap languishes in jail wondering whether to unsheathe his regimental meat cleaver and sacrifice himself to the higher ideal of army discipline.
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