The German playwright Ernst Toller (1893-1939) was one of the best-known of the dramatists of the expressionist school.

Ernst Toller was born on Dec. 1, 1893, at Samotschin near Bromberg, the son of a businessman. He studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Munich, and Grenoble. In 1914 he volunteered for war service, but the experience of the trenches changed his life. Released from the army after a breakdown, Toller then gravitated toward the left in Bavaria and in 1917 was sentenced to imprisonment for pacifist views and activities. During this incarceration he composed his first play, Die Wandlung (1919; Transfiguration).

Transfiguration is an exemplary work of the expressionist theater. The title points to that transformation of heart and soul which is the theme of many expressionist plays. The drama proceeds in a series of stages (Stationen) and depicts a man's "way." It intermingles scenes portraying external events with others displaying the activity of...