Song of the Furnace [Der Gesang im Feuerofen]

Zuckmayer’s drama, which uses expressionistic and theatrical techniques as well as references to Biblical imagery, is based on the actual story of an informant whose betrayal of a group of French resistance fighters who were celebrating Christmas Eve 1943 in a castle led to their being burned to death by the Gestapo. The play moves from realistic scenes to scenes that employ free verse and in which angels and the spirits of the dead appear.