The Coral
by Georg Kaiser Translated by B.J.Kenworthy
by Georg Kaiser Translated by B.J.Kenworthy
In Georg Kaiser's play, a wealthy factory owner grapples with his traumatic past and the disdain of his children, who seek to challenge his oppressive pursuit of wealth, highlighting the destructive relationship between money and power.
About The Play
About The Play
A millionaire and his double. A need for a revolution. A cycle of family trauma.
Join a father’s quest to escape the horror of his past. Join his children’s quest to change the status quo.
Brought up in poverty, the Millionaire is the autocratic boss of a factory, intent on acquiring as much wealth as possible in order to distance himself from his unhappy poverty-stricken childhood. He has hired his exact physical double, the Secretary, who impersonates him at public functions. The only physical difference between them is a piece of coral on the Secretary’s watchchain…
The Millionaire’s son and daughter feel utter disgust for their father’s money and his ruthless exploitation of the poor. The last thing they want is to inherit the money and become like their father.
Part parable, part family drama, and part thriller, tragic yet deeply cynical, Georg Kaiser’s symbolic and epic play is a radical exploration of humans’ absurd and eternal entanglement with money, a world where the few have accumulated so much wealth and so much power to be able to destroy the many.
Playwright Georg Kaiser is one of Germany’s greatest dramatists, best known to UK audiences for his Expressionist classic, From Morning to Midnight. His plays, written just before and during a world war, ask vital questions about how we choose to lead our lives. First produced in 1918, and unseen in the UK since 1923, The Coral stands alone in its own right, but later became the first part of Georg Kaiser’s classic Gas trilogy.
Collide’s passion for an expressionist aesthetic and a dream-like visual theatrical language provides the perfect frame for this unique rediscovery of Georg Kaiser’s unfairly neglected modern classic.
COVID SAFE
As one of the most intimate theatre venues in London, we are taking every possible precaution to ensure the safety of performers, staff, and audience members during the current pandemic.
Audience members may be temperature-checked upon their arrival at the theatre, and we strongly recommend wearing a face mask at all times, including during the performance.
In order to ensure that the Finborough Theatre is still accessible for those who are CEV (Clinically Extremely Vulnerable) or those who would just prefer it, all Sunday matinee performances are Covid Pass Sundays when we will ask for proof of vaccination as well as mask wearing.
We have reduced our audience capacity to 85% and adjusted our ticket prices to reflect this. We have been reviewing these protocols every month and will lift them as soon as it is safe to do so.
For full information, please see our website.