The Dance of Death (Auden play)

The Dance of Death is a one-act play in verse and prose by W. H. Auden, published in 1933.

The Dance of Death is a satiric musical extravaganza that portrays the "death inside" the middle classes as a silent dancer.

The dancer first attempts to keep himself alive through escapism at a resort hotel, then through nationalistic enthusiasm, then through idealism, then through a New Year's party at a brothel, before he finally dies.

Karl Marx appears on stage and pronounces the dancer dead.

It was widely interpreted as pro-Communist, but Auden later wrote in a copy of the printed text, "The communists never spotted that this was a nihilistic leg-pull".