''The Park'' () is a 1983 play by the German writer

Botho Strauß Botho Strauss (; written as Botho Strauß) (born 2 December 1944) is a German playwright, novelist, and essayist. Early life His father was a chemist. After finishing his secondary education, Strauss studied German, History of the Theatre a ...

. It is loosely based on

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...

'', with the characters moved to a contemporary German city. Strauß wrote the play after a cancelled staging of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' for the Berliner Schaubühne. Strauß had worked on his own translation of the play, but decided to adapt it into a new play with a modern-day setting. The play was printed in 1983 and staged in three German versions the following year, by Dieter Bitterli in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

Dieter Dorn Dieter Dorn (born 31 October 1935 in Leipzig) is a German theatre director, also for the opera, the manager of the Münchner Kammerspiele from 1983 to 2001 and now manager of the Bavarian Staatsschauspiel. Career Dieter Dorn studied at the T ...

at the

Munich Kammerspiele The Munich Kammerspiele (German: Münchner Kammerspiele) is a state-funded German-language theater company based at the ''Schauspielhaus'' on Maximilianstraße (Munich), Maximilianstrasse in the Bavarian capital. The company currently has three ...

and Peter Stein at the Berliner Schaubühne. It was the basis for the 1992 opera ''Parken'' by the composer

Hans Gefors Hans Gefors (born 8 December 1952) is a Swedish composer. He was born in Stockholm and has lived in Lund since the mid-1990s. Selected works * ''La boîte chinoise'', for guitar (1975) * ''Poeten och glasmästaren'', chamber opera (1979, libretto ...

Reception

Paul Taylor of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' reviewed a 1995 production in London, and wrote that "the malaise of these contemporary characters is altogether more existential than anything suffered in the ''Dream'', an inwardly-turned madness rather than the healthier lunacy of love". He described how "thematic motifs from the Shakespeare surface in a provocatively warped way" and called the play "a work in which the spirit of Shakespeare's comedy leaks stirringly (if, in the end, impotently) into the senses of the contemporary personnel", summarizing it as "a strangely haunting experience".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Park 1983 plays German-language plays Plays adapted into operas Plays and musicals based on A Midsummer Night's Dream Plays by Botho Strauss