"The Physicists" is a provocative and darkly comic satire about life in modern times, by one of Europe s foremost dramatists and the author of the internationally celebrated "The Visit." The world s greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Mobius, is in a madhouse, haunted by recurring visions of King Solomon. He is kept company by two other equally deluded scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, the other who believes he is Newton. It soon becomes evident, however, that these three are not as harmlessly lunatic as they appear. Are they, in fact, really mad? Or are they playing some murderous...

Friedrich Durrenmatt is considered one of the most significant playwrights of our time. During the years of the Cold War, arguably only Beckett, Camus, Sartre, and Brecht rivaled him as a presence in European letters. In this ALTA National Translation Award-winning new translation of what many critics consider his finest play, Joel Agee gives a fresh lease to a classic of twentieth-century theater. Durrenmatt once wrote of himself: "I can best be understood if one grasps grotesqueness," and The Visit is a consummate, alarming Durrenmatt blend of hilarity, horror, and vertigo. The play...