Hauptmann Plays - Absolute Classics Author:Gerhart Hauptmann In The Rats, an ex-theatre director accuses his daughter's fiance a student and would-be actor, of undermining the fabric of society and the Prussian state with unconventional views, like a plague of rats. Also includes The Weavers, which is based on an account of the weaver's revolt of 1844, as told to Hauptmann by his father.