Democracy

Winner of the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play, Democracy is Michael Frayn’s follow-up to his landmark work Copenhagen. This play re-imagines the interactions and motivations of Willy Brandt and those in his political circle as he became chancellor of West Germany in 1966. It also follows Günter Guillaume, a functionary who became Brandt’s personal assistant and who was eventually exposed as an East German spy in a discovery that helped force the chancellor from office. What circumstances allowed Brandt to become the first left-wing chancellor in 40 years? And why, given his progressive policies, did the East German secret police feel it necessary to plant a spy in his office and risk bringing down his government? Inspired by known events of 20th Century history, Frayn has created a drama of extraordinary urgency and subtlety.