The Weavers

Weavers, The (Die Weber, De Waber)

    Author: Gerhart Hauptmann

    First Performance: 1893, Berlin; 1st public perf. 1894

    Published: 1892

    First English Translation: 1899

    Genre: Drama in 5 acts; German prose, also version in Silesian dialect

    Setting: Silesia, 1844

    Cast: 26m, 11f, 3 children, extras

The rich employer Dreissiger pays miserable amounts to the starving weavers who bring him the cloth they have woven at home. Although he promises more employment to the unhappy workers, this is in fact a move to lower their rates of pay. One of the weavers, who has not eaten meat for two years, cooks his dog and eats it, but cannot keep the meal down. Moritz Jäger, a soldier, urges the weavers to rebel and begins to sing the defiant ‘Weavers' Song’. As the tension mounts, the Dreissigers...

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