Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2001

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics

Committee Chair

Jurgen Schlunk.

Committee Co-Chair

Deborah Janson

Committee Member

Johann Seynnaeve

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to examine selected works of the contemporary German playwright Rainer Lewandowski. This project will introduce Rainer Lewandowski's style and innovative ways of writing and directing plays by first analyzing two significant monographs, one about the German filmmaker Alexander Kluge and the other about the Romantic composer and writer E. T. A. Hoffmann. Second, I will show the importance of Rainer Lewandowski's children's theater, for example his stage adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's children's story The Strange Child. Next, his musicals Me, Marlene, Mambo Mortale and Don't Panik, and his plays Tonight Neither Hamlet and The Birthday or the Same Procedure as Every Year will be discussed. Last, I will talk about two of Rainer Lewandowski's historical plays, one about the assassination of a German king, the other about E. T. A. Hoffmann's life in Bamberg and his fictional characters, and I will introduce two of his most recent, not yet published plays. My interview with Rainer Lewandowski, which was conducted during my stay at the University in Bamberg in August of 2000, concludes this thesis.

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