The Ugly One

by Marius von Mayenburg

Overview

Lette thought he was normal. When the extent of his ugliness is revealed he turns to a plastic surgeon for help. But after the bandages come off, Lette soon learns that there is such a thing as too beautiful.


'Owing glancing debts to Mary Shelley and HG Wells, Mayenburg's 60-minute play squarely hits any number of targets: our society's obsession with external beauty, the brutality of capitalism, and the danger of treating defining organs like mechanical parts. But, deftly translated from German by Maja Zade, the play makes its points with the lightest of touches.' Guardian



The Ugly One is a scalpel-sharp comedy on beauty, identity and getting ahead in life.



The play is published as a programme text edition to coincide with its British premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 13 September 2007.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780713689440
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/02/2009
Series:	Modern Plays
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Marius Von Mayenburg studied mediaeval literature in Munich and Berlin, and from 1994 until 1998 playwriting at the Berlin University of the Arts. He is writer in residence at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin. He was awarded the Kleist Prize for young dramatists for his first play Fireface (1997), the Frankfurt Writer's Foundation Prize (1998) and was named 1999's up-and-coming writer by the magazine Theaterheute on the basis of its critics' poll. Since then, he has written several plays, such as Eldorado, Turista, The Ugly One, Perplexed and Martyr, amongst others. His plays have been translated into over 30 languages and performed both in Germany and abroad. Alongside his activities as playwright, dramaturg and director, Mayenburg has worked as a translator for plays such as Thomas Ostermeier's Shakespeare productions of Hamlet, Othello and Measure for Measure. In August 2013, he directed his own translation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at Schaubühne Berlin and in December 2013, his translation of Oscar Wilde's Bunbury at Residenztheater München.

Editorial Reviews

For all its humour and satire on beauty and the homogenisation of the human race, the play is also a deeply complex reflection on identity that sees four actors take on eight roles, switching between characters and scenes with surreally seamless fluidity.” —The Independent

“Marius von Mayenburg's savage social satire...highlights the dangers of living in a society with rigidly conformist notions of physical perfection...Mayenburg's point [is] that we inhabit a modern vanity fair where identity is up for grabs.” —Michael Billington, Guardian, 13.06.08

“A cautionary fairytale for the modern age. Maybenburg takes his scalpel to the current fixation with makeovers, botox and surgery, with size zero and the struggle to preserve youth at all costs...But...he does all this with a twinkle in his eye.” —Sarah Hemming, Financial Times, 17.06.08

“The Ugly One...is a metaphysical teaser and a theatrical dare.” —Susannah Clapp, Observer

From the Publisher