Von Horvath: Plays Two

by Ödön von Horváth, Christopher Hampton (Translation)

Includes the plays Italian Night and Tales from the Vienna Woods

Written in 1930s Europe, these plays describe the decay of a society haunted by inflation and succumbing to a rising tide of fascism. In Hampton’s translation of Tales from the Vienna Woods (staged at the RNT in 1977) von Horváth portrays, with compassion and impartiality, the interplay between individual selfishness and the pressures of a society in crisis. Italian Night, in this new translation by Meredith Oakes, has a group of friends deciding to hold a republican ‘Italian Night’, only to discover the fascists have chosen the same day for a German Day parade.

168 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Ödön von Horváth was a German-writing, Austro-Hungarian-born, playwright and novelist. Important topics in Horváth's works were popular culture, politics and history. He especially tried to warn of the dawn of fascism and its dangers. Among Horváth's most enduringly popular works, Jugend ohne Gott describes the youth in Nazi Germany from a disgruntled teacher's point of view, who, himself at first an opportunist, is helpless against the racist and militaristic Nazi propaganda that his pupils are subjected to and that dehumanizes them and, at last, loses his job but gains his identity.

Having always lived in fear of being struck by lightning, in Paris Horváth was hit by a falling branch and killed during a thunderstorm on the Champs-Élysées, opposite the Théâtre Marigny.

His famous quote:

"If you ask me what is my native country, I answer: I was born in Fiume, grew up in Belgrade, Budapest, Pressburg [Bratislava], Vienna and Munich, and I have a Hungarian passport, but I have no fatherland. I am a very typical mix of old Austria-Hungary: at once Magyar, Croatian, German and Czech; my country is Hungary; my mother tongue is German."

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's strange: I was really excited about Italian Night and less so about Tales from the Vienna Woods. I was very disappointed by Italian Night (whether that is the original writing or the translation is hard to tell) but loved Tales from the Vienna Woods.

[massmarketbareback · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmmmm....like these are two very good plays but....ugh...like the translation sucked all the life out of them?maybe, don't know if i can say that for a fact. italian nights was the play u read the collection for and was my favourite but was the least palatable of the two. hmmmm give me a martin crimp version