The play that scandalized a nation and launched German Naturalism. When Alfred Loth, a social reformer fresh from prison, arrives at the wealthy estate of his old friend Hoffmann, he enters a world of comfortable ignorance. The working-class miners in the surrounding villages drink themselves to death while their employers grow rich. Loth wants to expose these conditions, but he falls helplessly in love with Helen, the daughter of the house, a woman trapped in her own gilded cage. The play unflinchingly depicts the crushing weight of poverty, the moral bankruptcy of the upper classes, and the impossible choices facing those who see clearly. Its 1889 premiere caused a riot: audience members shouted at the actors, police were called, and Naturalism has never been the same since. This is theater as social indictment, raw, uncomfortable, and utterly compelling. For readers drawn to the great social problem plays, the works of Ibsen, or anyone who believes art should disturb the comfortable.
