Ivar Kreuger and Jeanne de la Motte

Jerzy W. Tepa was a popular Polish playwright whose pioneering plays were critically acclaimed and widely performed on several continents in the 1930s. Presumed lost during the turbulent years of World War II, several of those plays have only recently been rediscovered. Published here for the first time are English translations of two of Tepa’s best-known works. Both Ivar Kreuger, an experimental “film-play,” and Jeanne de la Motte, a psychological and historical drama, explore the nature of identity and the consequences of overweening ambition; and both reveal the playwright’s distinctive and original voice, still resonant today. In addition to the play texts, the volume includes an introduction that contextualizes Tepa’s works and an epilogue that offers valuable and personal insights into the author and the ways in which he tapped

into the concerns of his age to create theatrical sensations.