Georg Büchner’s considerable reputation rests on just three plays, and none of them were produced within his short life span from 1813-1837. A politically minded German Romantic, Büchner never completely abandoned the subject of his first play, a tragedy based on the bloody historical events of the French Revolution’s aftermath titled Danton’s Death. In Woyzeck, the antihero is a common soldier rather than a revolutionary; his tragedy comes at the hands of an uncaring, militaristic bureaucracy that swiftly strips him of everything he has. The nihilism of the story and the writer’s scattershot, nonlinear approach to telling it both reinforce Woyzeck’s fundamental message of generalized protest against the grinding cruelties of fate. Anticipating the tremendous difficulties that would face mankind in the 20th century, Woyzeck portrays the revenge of a man whose life is not so much thwarted as it is dissolved by circumstances beyond his control.
One consequence of Büchner’s having left the play in fragments is that it has been seized on as material to be further elaborated, most famously by Alban Berg in his modernist opera masterpiece Wozzeck. This production, directed by Ensemble Theatre Company’s Jonathan Fox, represents a significant revision of the 21st-century musical version of the play that was created by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan in association with avant-garde theater artist Robert Wilson.
The 13 new Tom Waits songs expand the original script to approximately 90 minutes playing time and operate in counterpoint to the play’s existing dialogue. Details of historical verisimilitude have not bogged down the creative team of Waits and Brennan. For example, they have no problem with Woyzeck (Stephen Van Dorn) referring to Marie (Gina Manziello) as his “Coney Island Baby” despite the setting in early-19th-century Germany. The songs are thus best understood as distillations rather than representations, artfully arranged amalgams of the carnival, the music hall, the jazz club, and the cabaret. These are strong additions to the Waits catalog, and they receive excellent performances here.