ABSTRACT
A countless number of political speakers have celebrated the German reunification and the breaking apart of the former USSR as a heroic victory of the western democracies over the "evil" communist regimes. For the people behind the Iron Curtain the economic affluence of the West appeared to be a logical consequence of freedom and of higher moral standards. For many of them the Golden West was so tempting that they were ready to risk their lives for a chance of fleeing from their countries. Radical criticism or denial of the notion of the West's alleged superiority seems to be a political and social taboo.
The playwright Howard Brenton who has never hesitated to attack taboos in his long literary career, is one of the first dramatists to write a play on the collapse of the Berlin Wall. This article deals with one of his most provocative plays in the light of his literary development and his dramatic concepts.
