Horváth play comes from a recognisable Mitteleuropean tradition. Dürrenmatt, Kafka, and many more. It’s a tale of a small town whose society becomes corrupted. Hampton’s useful introduction notes how Horváth, having fled Nazi Germany in 1933, then returned with the aim, according to Hampton, of documenting through theatre the effects of fascism on society. Judgement Day takes place in a rural town where a succession of minor disturbances in the fabric of the community leads to a fatal industrial accident, when a train crashes, killing seventeen people. In this sense the play feels highly prophetic. So often in an industrial society the small tears in the fabric can lead to tragedy. (In the UK alone, Grenfell, King’s Cross, Hillsborough etcetera). These accident don’t come from nowhere, they have their roots in how society is structured, and the opening scene, where the accident happens, makes it clear that the stationmaster, Hudetz, who will become the anti-hero of the story, has been over-burdened due to cuts or “rationalising, they’re going to keep going until there aren’t any trains left at all.”
The playwright then uses this tragedy as a way of examining the mores of the small town, the fickle way in which the residents change their allegiances, depending on how the news is reported, another feature of the play that feels all too contemporary (twas ever thus). However, the play takes a sudden turn when it gets to the last of its seven scenes. Here, Horváth veers off towards more metaphysical territory. At this point the narrative embraces what might now be called horror. The use of stage elements, sound, lighting, is employed to the full and this final scene is devastating both in its judgement of the society and its theatrical originality.
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