Woyzeck

Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics)

Georg Büchner, Gregory Motton

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781780010755
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price

One of the most performed and influential plays in German theatre, Georg Büchner's Woyzeck is a modern classic that remains frighteningly relevant today.

Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a provincial German town, is bullied by his superiors and starved by the regiment's doctor in the name of scientific experiment. His only pleasures in life are his lover Marie and their innocent young son. But when Woyzeck learns that Marie has been unfaithful with the regiment's handsome Drum Major, he murders his lover in a fit of rage and hopelessness.

Based on a real-life murder trial that took place in Germany in the 1820s, Woyzeck was written in 1837 but not staged until 1913.

This English translation by Gregory Motton is published in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series. The edition includes an introduction by Kenneth McLeish, a chronology and suggestions for further reading.

1.

Open fields, the town in the distance.

WOYZECK and ANDRES splitting wood. ANDRES whistles.

WOYZECK. Yes, Andres, the place is cursed. See that patch of light over there where the mushrooms are growing? That’s where the head rolls in the evenings. Someone picked it up once, he thought it was a hedgehog. Three days and three nights and then he was in his coffin. (Quietly.) It was the freemasons, I’m sure of it, freemasons. Ssh!

ANDRES.	Two hares sitting there
	Eating the grass
	Until it was bare –

WOYZECK. Ssh! Do you hear, Andres, do you hear? Something’s moving

ANDRES.	Eating up the tiny shoots,
	Eating the grass
	Down to the roots –

WOYZECK. Something’s behind me, beneath me.

He stamps on the ground.

Hollow, d’you hear? Completely hollow under there. Freemasons.

ANDRES. I’m scared.

WOYZECK. Strange how quiet it is. You want to hold your breath. Andres?

ANDRES. What?

WOYZECK. Say something.

He stares ahead.

Andres, it’s so bright! The town is glowing. There’s fire travelling across the sky, and down here the din of trumpets. How it draws you in. Quick, don’t look behind you.

He drags him into the bushes.

ANDRES (after a pause). Woyzeck, do you still hear it?

WOYZECK. Silent, completely silent. As if the world was dead.

ANDRES. What was that? The drum’s going. We’d better go.

2.

In town.

MARIE with her CHILD at the window. [MARGRET.] The retreat passes, led by the DRUM MAJOR.

MARIE (rocking the child on her arm). Bum, bum, bum. Hear that? They’re coming.

MARGRET. What a man, like a tree.

MARIE. He stands on his feet like a lion.

[The DRUM MAJOR salutes.]

MARGRET. Giving him the eye, eh? Neighbour, it’s not like you.

MARIE. So what? You can take your eyes to the Jew and get them polished and sell them for a couple of buttons.

MARGRET. What? You? You? Little miss virgin? I’m an honest woman, me, but we all know you can see right through a pair of leather trousers.

[She goes.]

MARIE. Slut!

She shuts the window.

Come on, my own boy, let people talk. You’re only the poor son of a whore but you’re still my pride and joy with your shameless face. There, there . . .

What will you do with your eyes that are wild?

What will you do with your fatherless child?

There’s nothing to do

But sit here and sing.

Rockabye, rockabye, poor little thing,

There’s nothing for you . . .

A knock on the window.

Who’s that? Is that you, Franz? Come in.

WOYZECK. I can’t. Got to muster.

MARIE. Been cutting wood for the Captain?

WOYZECK. Yes, Marie.

MARIE. What’s wrong, Franz? You look destroyed.

WOYZECK (secretively). Things have been happening again, Marie, lots of things. Isn’t it written – ‘and there was smoke coming from the land as from an oven. . .’

MARIE. Franz!

WOYZECK. It followed me all the way to the edge of town. Something we don’t understand, something that will drive us out of our minds. What will become of it?

MARIE. Franz!

WOYZECK. I’ve got to go. At the fair tonight, then. I’ve put aside a bit again.

He goes.

MARIE. What a man. He’s possessed. He didn’t even look at his child. He’ll go mad with thinking. What are you so quiet for, boy? Are you scared? It’s getting dark, you could think you were blind. Nothing but the streetlamp shining in. I can’t bear it, I’m shaking.

She goes out.

3.

The fair. Lights, people.

An OLD MAN sings while a CHILD dances to a hurdy-gurdy.

OLD MAN.	On earth we can’t abide,
We all must die
As everybody knows –

[WOYZECK and MARIE come in.]

WOYZECK. Hey-hup, poor old man. Poor child, little child, sorrows and joys.

MARIE. When the fools talk sense then they fool us all. What a funny world, a beautiful world.

They move on to the BARKER. He is in front of a stall with his wife in trousers and a monkey dressed in a suit.

BARKER. Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Observe this creature God has created. A nothing, a mere nothing at all. But see what he has achieved; he walks upright, has a coat and trousers, carries a sword. The monkey is a soldier. Though that’s not saying much, the lowest form of humanity. Now, bow to us, that’s it, now you’re a baron, give us a kiss.

He plays a trumpet.

The little blighter is musical. Gentlemen, here you see the astronomical horse and little canaries favoured by all the crowned heads of Europe. Tell you everything, how old, how many children, what illnesses. The performance will now begin. The commencement of the commencement.

WOYZECK. You want a go?

MARIE. Don’t mind if I do. It must be nice in there. Look at the tassels the man has, and his wife’s got trousers.

They go inside the tent. The DRUM MAJOR and SERGEANT come in.

DRUM MAJOR. Hold it. Did you see her? What a woman.

SERGEANT. By the devil, you could foal a cavalry regiment out of her.

DRUM MAJOR. And breed Drum Majors.

SERGEANT. Look at the way she holds her head. You’d think the weight of all that black hair would drag her down. And her eyes . . .

DRUM MAJOR. Like looking down a well. Or a chimney. Quick, after her.

4.

Inside the tent.

[MARIE, WOYZECK, DRUM MAJOR, SERGEANT.]

MARIE. What lights.

WOYZECK. Yes, Marie, black cats with fiery eyes. Oh, what an evening.

The SHOWMAN leads in a horse.

SHOWMAN. Show your talents, show your animal reason. Put human society to shame. Gentlemen, the animal you see here with a tail behind and four hooves is a fellow of the learned societies and a professor at our university where he teaches the students riding and fighting. Now, use your double reasoning; what do you do when you use your double reasoning? Is there an ass in this learned gathering?

The horse shakes its head.

See the double reasoning, ladies and gentlemen. It’s called horse sense, this is no dumb animal, this is a person, a human being. A brute of a man, and yet an animal, a beast, une bête.

The horse behaves indecently.

That’s it. Put society to shame. You see, the animal is still in a state of nature, unidealised nature. Take a lesson from the animal, ask the doctor, it can be dangerous to keep it in. Man be natural, he says. You are created of dust, sand and filth. Do you want to be more than dust, sand and filth? See what reasoning! This creature can count even though it can’t use its fingers. Why? It can’t just express itself and make itself understood, it’s a person metamorphosised. Tell the ladies and gentlemen what the time is. Which of the ladies and gentlemen has a watch?

SERGEANT. A watch? There, sir.

With a grandiose, deliberate gesture, he takes out a watch from his pocket.

MA...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• For Further Reading
• Büchner: Key Dates
• Acknowledgement
• Characters and Notes
• Woyzeck
• Appendix: Fragments
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information