The Son (Hasenclever play)

The Son

Written by| Walter Hasenclever
Characters| The Son
The Tutor
The Friend
The Fräulein
The Father
Cherubim
Von Tuchmeyer
Prince Scheitel
Adrienne
Police Inspector
Date premiered| 1916 (1916)
Place premiered| Dresden
Original language| German
Subject| Intergenerational conflict
Genre| Expressionism
Setting| The present (1914), over 3 days

The Son (German: Der Sohn) is a five-act Expressionist play by the German playwright Walter Hasenclever.[1] It was the first self-proclaimed, full-length Expressionist play to be produced, though its dramatic structure is more or less realistic.[2] It takes as its subject the conflict between the generations and a rejection of the world in general by the young.[3] It is a semi-autobiographical work.[4]

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.[5] Ernst Deutsch played the Son to great acclaim.[6]

The play ends with the Son killing his father. He then "strides triumphantly over his father's corpse into a future full of glorious potential".[7]

## References[edit]

1. ^ Marx (1997) and Rorrison (1998, 475).
2. ^ Kuhns (1997, 23, 96), Rorrison (1998, 475), and Wellwarth (2002, 258).
3. ^ Rorrison (1998, 475) and Schürer (1997b, xiii).
4. ^ Schürer (1997b, xiv).
5. ^ Kuhns (1997, 61, 94), Rorrison (1998, 475), Schürer (1997b, ix, xiv), and Wellwarth (2002, 258).
6. ^ Kuhns (1997, 89) and Schürer (1997b, xiv-xv).
7. ^ Kuhns (1997, 36).

Sources

* Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43437-8.
* Hasenclever, Walter. 1994. Der Sohn. Ein Drama in fünf Akten. Nachw. v. Michael Schulz. Stuttgart: Reclam. ISBN 3-15-008978-6.
* Kuhns, David F. 1997. German Expressionist Theatre: The Actor and the Stage. New ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. ISBN 978-0-521-03522-4.
* Marx, Henry, trans. 1997. The Son. By Walter Hasenclever. In Schürer (1997a, 82-145).
* Rorrison, Hugh. 1998. "Hasenclever, Walter." In Banham (1998, 475).
* Schürer, Ernst, ed. 1997a. German Expressionist Plays. The German Library ser. vol. 66. New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-0950-8.
* \
. 1997b. Introduction. In Schürer (1997a, vii-xxi).
* Wellwarth, George E. 2002. "Expressionism." In The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama. Ed. John Gassner and Edward Quinn. Mineola, NY: Dover. 256-261. ISBN 978-0-486-42064-6.