Before Dawn

Before Dawn (Vor Sonnenaufgang)

    Alternative Title: Before Daybreak; Before Sunrise

    Author: Gerhart Hauptmann

    First Performance: 1889, Berlin

    Published: 1889

    First English Translation: 1909

    Genre: Drama in 5 acts; German prose

    Setting: A village in Silesia, 1880s

    Cast: 10m, 9f

A young Socialist, Alfred Loth, comes to a mining district in Silesia to study the condition of the miners. He visits his old friend Hoffmann, a now unscrupulous engineer in charge of the mines. Hoffmann has married Martha, the daughter of Krause, a peasant grown rich from the coal on his land. Loth falls in love with her sister Helene, the only family member untainted by their suddenly acquired wealth. Helene reciprocates his love, seeing him as her only chance of escaping from her...

[The entire page is 349 words long]

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