In 1925, playwright Berta Lask (1878–1967) wrote a play to mark the 400th anniversary of the German Peasants’ War. In it, she imagines Thomas Müntzer waking up every hundred years to address the contemporary political situation. 

To mark the 100th year of the play and the 500th of the Peasants’ War, today, on May Day, we are releasing as a PDF the translation of Berta Lask’s Thomas Müntzer: Dramatic depiction of the German Peasants’ War of 1525. 

Translated for the first time into English by Sam Dolbear in collaboration with Esther Leslie, Joey Simons, and Charlotte Thießen, the PDF of the play includes character lists, explanatory notes, and prop lists.

Download as a printable PDF here.

Download as a e-book here.

It is our hope that readings or performance of the play take place all over the world, to mark the centenary of the play and the quincentenary of the events it depicts. 

In the play, Lask poses a basic question: What would Thomas Müntzer see if he woke up today? A list accrues: Climate breakdown, imperialism, gendered oppression, earthquakes, genocide, impending fascism. Capitalism didn’t dig its own grave. Rather, the dead oppressors of previous centuries have been resurrected, planted in new bodies, tooled with new modes of bondage, within uneven spatial domination and temporal disjunction. Thomas Müntzer, with all of its time travel and its modes of resurrection, addresses the present from a past multiplied.

Designed by Ott Kagovere, this PDF was released as a working document and will be published later in the year with extensive commentaries. If you organise a reading/performance of the play, or if you would like to be in touch about edits do get in touch via info@rabrab.net or audio@maydayrooms.org.