Von Horváth: Plays One

Tales from the Vienna Woods describes the decay of a society haunted by inflation and lurching towards Fascism. Italian Night lays bare the blindness of even well-intentioned men and the dangerous inadequacy of their fascist tormentors. Sladek and Right Around the Congress are set in a period of roaring inflation in Germany after WWI.

"Includes the plays Sladek and A Sexual Congress plus an introduction by Penny Black Set in the inter-war period of raging inflation in Germany, these two plIncludes the plays Sladek and A Sexual Congress plus an introduction by Penny Black Set in the inter-war period of raging inflation in Germany, these two plays portray the losers in what von Horvath called 'the gigantic battle between the individual and society'. In Sladek, Black's version being the first to be published in English, we see how social conditions lead people to desperate action and violence, opening the road for dictators and fascists. Written just as the Nazis came to power, A Sexual Congress predicts with frightening accuracy the cycle of violence that was to spread throughout Europe.