Danton's Death

<i>This is your rhetoric translated. These wretches these executioners the guillotine are your speeches come to life. You have built your doctrines out of human heads... </i><i>Why should an event that transforms the whole of humanity not advance through blood?</i> <br/><br/>1794: the French Revolution reaches its climax. After a series of bloody purges the life-loving volatile Danton is tormented by his part in the killing. His political rival the driven ascetic Robespierre decides Danton's fate. A titanic struggle begins. Once friends who wanted to change the world now one stands for compromise the other for ideological purity as the guillotine awaits. <br/><br/>A revolutionary himself George Büchner was 21 when he wrote the play in 1835 while hiding from the police. With its hair-raising on-rush of scenes and vivid dramatisation of complex visionary characters <i>Danton's Death </i>has a claim to be the greatest political tragedy ever written. In his newly-revised translation Howard Brenton captures Büchner's exhilarating energy as Danton struggles to avoid his inexorable fall.