Die Weber

A spark is enough: When a starving boy collapses, protests erupt from the exploited weavers in front of the factory owner's villa, Dreissiger. The situation escalates. Hauptmann's drama about the Silesian Weaver Uprising of 1844 was a political statement - a lengthy censorship process preceded its first public performance in Berlin in 1894, and Kaiser Wilhelm II. announced his withdrawal from the German Theater, while Social Democrats cheered. It also ventured into aesthetic new territory: no longer is an individual the "hero" of the drama, but a group of uniform figures of misery - the weavers.