Georg Kaiser
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Friedrich Carl Georg Kaiser (November 25, 1878 in Magdeburg, Germany - June 4, 1945 in Ascona, Switzerland) was a highly prolific German dramatist who wrote in a variety of styles, but is best known as an Expressionist, most notably for The Burghers of Calais (1913), From Morning to Midnight (1912), and a trilogy, comprising The Coral (1917), Gas (1918), Gas II (1920).
From Morning to Midnight, filmed by Karlheinz Martin in 1920, was written in 1912 and first performed in 1917. One of the most-often performed works of German Expressionist theatre, its plot concerned a Cashier (played by Ernst Deutsch in Martin's film) in a small bank in W. (ostensibly Weimar) who is alerted to the power of money by the visit of a rich Italian lady. He embezzles 60,000 Marks and absconds to B. (Berlin) where he attempts to find transcendent experiences in sport, romance and religion, only to be ultimately frustrated.
The Burghers of Calais, also first performed in 1917, was linguistically very dense, its dialogue comprising numerous emotive monologues influenced by the Telegramstil poetics of August Stramm. The play, like Kaiser's other works of the period, bears the mark of Nietzsche's philosophy, calling upon the modern individual to transcend mediocrity through extraordinary actions.
Kaiser's classic Expressionist plays, written just before and during the Great War, often called for man to make a decisive break with the past, rejuvenating contemporary society. He eschewed characterisation, and particularly character psychology, instead making his protagonists and other characters archetypes, employing highly anti-naturalistic dialogue often comprising lengthy individual speeches.
Kaiser's plays, particularly From Morning to Midnight, were highly influential on the German dramatists operating during the 1920s, particular Iwan Goll, Ernst Toller and Bertolt Brecht, who drew on Kaiser's use of revue-type scenes and Kaiser's use of parable, influenced by medieval and 16th century German mystery plays.
Kaiser collaborated with the composer Kurt Weill on his one-act play The Protagonist (1926) and Der Silbersee (1933), as well as on two other dramas.
In his later years, Kaiser developed his criticism of the modern machine age that characterised the Gas trilogy. Imprisoned briefly in 1923 for stealing a loaf of bread during the hyper-inflationary crisis, Kaiser fled to Switzerland when the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, and turned to writing verse dramas on mythological themes, including Pygmalion, Amphitryon, and Bellerophon, and a pacifist drama, The Soldier Tanaka (1940).
