Woyzeck

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A play (actually just a fragment) by Georg Büchner, who died in 1837 while working on it. Revolutionary for its time because up until that period, Tragedy as a genre was reserved for stories about the upper classes. Its companion piece is Büchner's play Leonce and Lena, which conversely is a scathing comedy about the upper classes—a concept that was just as taboo.

Franz Woyzeck is a soldier with a child out of wedlock. To help make his living, he does odd jobs for his commanding officer and participate in "medical" experiments. He's gone completely crazy - seeing apocalyptic visions everywhere - but no one seems interested in that. When his wife, out of a mixture of boredom and hopelessness, begins seeing a Drum Major, Woyzeck lashes out.

In 1979, Werner Herzog had just finished filming a remake of Nosferatu. After almost spending a week without making a movie, he got to work on Woyzeck, which became one of his most beloved films.

Tom Waits and Robert Wilson have written a Rock Opera based on the play. Alban Berg also composed an Opera, titled Wozzeck.


Tropes used in Woyzeck include:

The unfinished drama by Georg Büchner provides examples of


The movie by Werner Herzog provides examples of

Doctor: Didn't I tell you that the Urethral Sphincter is subject to the will!?.

    • Oddly enough, he seems to be the most cheerful of all the characters.
      • In Alban Berg's opera, he's listed as a buffo bass. Buffo.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: A string quartet plays the same song over Woyzeck's humiliating PT in the opening credit, Eva dancing with the Drum Major, and Woyzeck's murder of Eva.
  • Typecasting: Just like in Stroszek, Eva Mattes plays a woman who temporarily has a crazy husband.

The Waits/Wilson rock opera provides examples of