Der Park

The characters and action are "inhabited and moved, elevated and fooled by the spirit of Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream" says Strauss in his introduction to the play. Titania and Oberon find themselves in a rather dirty city park, where they attempt to bring erotic desire, sensuality and poetry to the people. Their magic doesn't work, though: the world has become disinterested in love, and to the hectic, completely self involved present day people these spirits of nature seem like freaks and crazies. Day-to-day realpolitic keep the upper hand, and in the end, even Titania and Oberon have to comply.

The play has been translated into:
English: The Park; Portuguese: O Parque; French: Le parc; Greek; Catalan

Botho Strauß

Botho Strauß (born in 1944 in Naumburg, Saale) was editor at the magazine Theater heute and dramaturge at the Schaubühne, Hallesches Ufer in Berlin. He gave his debut as a dramatist in 1972 with the play Die Hypochonder. Since then, he has published...

Plays by Botho Strauß