Scene from Murderer the Woman's Hope by Oskar Kokoschka

Directed by Heinrich Georg, Frankfurt, 1920

Although Wedekind and Strindberg are generally considered the first expressionist playwrights, some critics give that distinction to the well-known Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka, who wrote two plays in 1907 that are in every sense truly expressionist. The dionysiac aspect of expressionism is demonstrated in these works at full pitch. Murderer the Woman's Hope is a savage view of the relationship between the sexes, a major expressionist theme.