Peter Weiss

Peter Ulrich Weiss (8 November 1916 – 10 May 1982) was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.
Peter Weiss earned his reputation in the post-war German literary world as the proponent of an avant-garde, meticulously descriptive writing, as an exponent of autobiographical prose, and also as a politically engaged dramatist. He gained international success with Marat/Sade, the American production of which was awarded a Tony Award and its subsequent film adaptation directed by Peter Brook. His "Auschwitz Oratorium," The Investigation, served to broaden the debates over the so-called "Vergangenheitspolitik" or "politics of history." Weiss' magnum opus was The Aesthetics of Resistance, called the "most important German-language work of the 70s and 80s. His early, surrealist-inspired work as a painter and experimental filmmaker remains less well known.
== Tossup Questions ==
# This author concluded one of his plays by having one character stand atop a chair, signalling for the curtain's fall. In another play, he created the characters of the Chef and Giotto, who accompany a modern Dante who is speechless for the entire first act. That play was part of a planned trilogy, another volume of which is about the Auschwitz trials and is titled The Investigation. He wrote a novel about the underground congregation of teens disaffected with the (*) Nazi regime in the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, but remains best known for a play that he ended with the Herald calling for four singers to sing about 15 years of France's history just as the inmates of the Charenton Asylum go crazy. For 10 points, identify this author of The Aesthetics of Resistance and a play about a play staged by an author about the assassination of a French Revolutionary figure, titled Marat/Sade.
# This author wrote a play about a customs inspector whose heart falls into his pants and who meets Jack Pudding after being jailed arbitrarily, entitled How Mr. Mockinpott Was Cured of His Sufferings. He used Auschwitz trial transcripts as the basis for his oratorio The Investigation and wrote a play about the Angolan uprising called Song of the Lusitanian Bogey. The stage directions for his major play state that most of the characters are to hop about, turn in circles, (*) mutter, and scream at irregular intervals, as one of the major characters delivers a monologue while being whipped and the use of a chopped-off