by Odon Von Horvath.
John Sessions stars in the third and final play in the season of European plays recently revived at London's Gate Theatre
Taking as its starting point the Figaro household a few years after the happy finale of Beaumarchais' play The Marriage of Figaro, the German playwright Odon Von Horvath (best known for his Tales from the Vienna Woods) provides a 20th-century setting for Figaro and Susanne's marital disappointment.
The play was written in 1937, and set at that time, Von Horvath wrote, "because the problems of revolution and exile are first timeless, and second, especially relevant to our time".
A world order collapses. Figaro and his wife Susanne help the Count and Countess flee the country after the revolution.