Pains of Youth

(Paperback, Main)

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You could do insane twenty hour shifts in the theatre. You could be mother of ten children. You could be the toughest whore on the block. You contain all possibilities. You are the ultimate cliche of youth's incredible potential.

Promiscuous, pitiless and bored, six sexually entangled medical students restlessly wander in and out of a boarding house, cramming, drinking, taunting, spying. Freder sets about savagely experimenting with the young, pretty maid with half an eye on his former lover Desiree, a wild, disillusioned aristocrat. Petrell abandons Marie for the ruthless underdog Irene. Marie doesn't waste any time weeping - Desiree wants her. Bourgeois existence or suicide. There are no other choices. Vienna, 1923. A discontented post-war generation diagnose youth to be their sickness and do their best to destroy it. A shocking, erotically charged play by Austrian writer Ferdinand Bruckner, presented in a compelling new version by Martin Crimp.

Author Bio

Martin Crimp was born in 1956. His plays include Three Attempted Acts (1985), Getting Attention (1992), The Treatment (1993), Attempts on her Life (1997) and The Country (2000). He has translated or adapted work by Ionesco (The Chairs, 1997), Genet (The Maids, 1999) and Moliere (The Misanthrope, 1996).His work in the UK has been produced by the RSC, the Young Vic and the Royal Court, where he was writer-in-residence in 1997. In New York his work has been seen at the Public Theater and the Classic Stage Company, as well as on Broadway.