{"product_id":"the-new-trial","title":"The New Trial","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003ci\u003eThe New Trial\u003c\/i\u003e is Peter Weiss’s final drama, completed only months before his death in 1982 and never before published in English.\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eOne of Europe’s most important twentieth century playwrights—often considered as influential as Brecht and Beckett—Weiss is best known to American audiences as the author of the Broadway play \u003ci\u003eMarat\/Sade \u003c\/i\u003eand the three-volume novel \u003ci\u003eThe Aesthetics of Resistance,\u003c\/i\u003e which has elicited comparison with Joyce’s \u003ci\u003eUlysses \u003c\/i\u003eand Garcia Marquez’s \u003ci\u003eOne Hundred Years of Solitude. \u003c\/i\u003eInitially influenced by Franz Kafka and later by the American Henry Miller, Weiss worked to expose the hypocrisy, the deception, and the nature of aggression in the contemporary world. \u003cbr\u003eA transformative “updating” of Kafka’s novel \u003ci\u003eThe Trial,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe New Trial \u003c\/i\u003epresents a surreal, hallucinatory look at the life of “Josef K.,” chief attorney in an enormous multinational firm that exploits both his idealism and his self-doubt in order to present to the world a public face that will mask its own dark and fascistic intentions. Fusing Marxist and capitalist perspectives in a manner that anticipates aspects of the current global market expansion, Weiss evokes a world in which nothing is private and everything is for sale. \u003cbr\u003eThis edition of \u003ci\u003eThe New Trial\u003c\/i\u003e is designed to facilitate theatrical teaching and stage production of the play. An extensive introduction by James Rolleston and Kai Evers situates the work in the full context of Weiss’s life, including his Swedish exile during the regime of the Third Reich. In addition, the play’s text is followed by interviews with Weiss and his original codirector (and wife) Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss, as well as an account of the challenges of the first English staging by director Jody McAuliffe.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Peter Weiss","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53614425178492,"sku":"9780822326908","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0251\/4980\/0541\/files\/missing-cover_25105971-1147-4edb-92d0-322c80be36ba.jpg?v=1746711353","url":"https:\/\/combined-academic.myshopify.com\/products\/the-new-trial","provider":"Combined Academic Publishers - Mare Nostrum Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}