Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck

Based on a real murder case that took place in Germany in 1821 involving one of the first insanity defenses in legal history, Woyzeck tells the story of a soldier struggling to survive abject poverty with a common law wife and new child. To make ends meet, he does his military service, performs odd jobs for his eccentric Captain, and subjects himself to strange experiments by a Doctor who forces him to eat only a diet of peas. As the forces bearing down on his existence begin to cause him to lose grip on his sanity, Woyzeck is forced over the edge when he discovers that his common law wife, Marie, engages in an affair with another soldier.