The Wave
The American Drama Group Europe presents TNT Theatre Britain / Gastspiel
The Wave by American author Morton Rhue has become one of the widest read novels in central Europe. The company is delighted to announce that we have the first rights to prodcuce a dramatization in English of this modern classic. The Wave strikes a chord in our troubled times, exploring as it does the rise of facism without ever sinking to polemic or delivering easy answers.
The book is based on a true story: in 1965 in Palo Alta (California) a history teacher embarked on an experiment to educate his young and rather naive students about the rise of the Nazi party.
He founded a movement in the school called the Wave, with himself as unquestioned leader. His purpose was to explain the attractions of a disciplined mass movement that bound its members together in harmony. But even as the Wave took off and spread throughout the whole school, its darker side became apparent and the experiment ended in desaster.
The book and play explored why this happened and what can be learnt from this today when our own political and social certainties are being questioned just as they were in the 1930s.