The glass of water
The glass of water (full title: The glass of water, or: Causes and Effects , title of the French original: Le verre d'eau ou Les effets et les causes ) is a comedy in five acts by the French writer Eugène Scribe .
action
The play takes place at the court of the last Stuart Queen Anne of Great Britain . It is the 18th century at the time of the War of Spanish Succession - Anna, however, is not a strong ruler, but is influenced by the Duchess of Marlborough . The Queen is anxious for peace, the Duchess, on the other hand, expects to gain from the war, as her husband is in command of the British Army.
The Duchess's greatest enemy is Lord Bolingbroke , who wants peace to knock out the Marlborough family and become Prime Minister of England. To achieve this, the Lord uses a young officer of the Royal Guard, with whom both Queen Anna and the Duchess are in love, and thus uses the feelings of the ladies for his court intrigue.
Opposing each other as enemies are a figure (Lord Marlborough) who leads the affairs of government in England with inscrutable arbitrariness and who is responsible for an unnecessary and expensive war against Louis XIV, and a main figure (Lord Bolingbroke) who acts according to the maxim: “The The most insignificant things can often have the greatest impact. You may believe, like everyone else , that the political catastrophes, the revolutions, the fall of an empire, stem from serious, deep, important causes. Not even close! The states are subjugated or defended by heroes, by great men, but those great men are guided by small passions, caprices, vanities ”(Act I, 4th scene).
Scribes The glass of water is a prime example of a Pièce bien faite , in which all the motives for action are so interlinked that the action is characterized by an almost positivistic consistency at every point . The political and historical processes that make up the subject of the comedy seem perfectly logical and consistent. In addition, the subtitle of the piece, “Causes and Effects”, clearly refers to such an understanding of history and progressive thinking that was typical of the mid-19th century.
Performances
The first performance took place on November 17, 1840 in Paris in the Théâtre-Français . The play was translated into numerous languages (into German by Alexander Cosmar as early as 1841 ) and is still often performed today.
Radio play versions
The ORF produced in 1951 a radio version with members of the Vienna Burgtheater (First broadcast on 21 September 1951). Raoul Aslan spoke to Lord Bolingbroke, Maria Eis the Duchess and Alma Seidler Queen Anna. In addition, Eva Gold was heard as Abigail and Erich Auer as Arthur Masham.
Between 1926 and 1959, at least 11 radio play versions were made in Germany, including the Saarland , including some so-called broadcast games from the time of the Weimar Republic , which at the time were still broadcast “live without recording”.
Overview:
- 1926: The Glass of Water - Director: Karl Köstlin , with Pia Mietens (Queen Anna), Elsa Pfeiffer (Duchess of Marlborough), Kurt Junker (Viscount von Bolingbroke), Ludwig Donath , Erna Fassbinder , Karl Köstlin, Georg Ott ( SÜRAG )
- 1926: The Glass of Water - Director: Heinz Hilpert ( SÜWRAG (Frankfurt am Main) )
- 1926: Das Glas Wasser - Direction: Hans Bodenstedt , with Claire Goericke (Anna, Queen of England), Käte Wittenberg (Duchess of Marlborough), Karl Wüstenhagen (Henry Saint-John, Viscount von Bolinbroke), Hans Otto , Grete Holtz , Ferdinand Krantz , Hans Freundt , Lotte Schloß , John Walter ( NORAG )
- 1946: A glass of water - Director: Theodor Steiner , with Eva Zietz , Fränze Roloff , Karlheinz Schilling , Ursula Langrock (HR)
- 1947: A glass of water - Director: Arthur Georg Richter , with Hans Magel (Bolingbroke), Eva Fiebig (Duchess), Irmgard Weyrather (Queen), Horst Uhse , Agi Prandhoff , Günther Vulpius , Dagobert von Carlblom , Günter Schmitz , Per Lhot ( SWF )
- 1948: A glass of water - Director: Helmut Brennicke , with Otto Arneth , Ingeborg Schmidt-Fetscher , Marianne Kehlau , Annemarie Holtz ( BR )
- 1951: A glass of water - Director: Heinz-Günter Stamm , with Agnes Fink (Anna, Queen of England), Pamela Wedekind (Duchess of Marlborough), Helmut Käutner (Henry St. John), Dieter Borsche , Brigitte Otto , Udo Löptin , Sigrid Seiler , Alexander Malachovsky , Jochen Hauer , Alfred Menhardt (BR)
- 1952: Das Glas Wasser (theater recording) - Director: Hanns Korngiebel ( RIAS )
- 1952: A glass of water - Director: Heinz-Günter Stamm, with Dagmar Altrichter (Anna, the young Queen of England), Hilde Weissner (Duchess of Marlborough), Gert Westphal (Henry Saint John, Viscount von Bolingbroke), Dieter Borsche, Gerda -Maria Klein , Kurt Strehlen ( RB )
- 1954: The Glass of Water - Director: Wilm ten Haaf , with Fritz Haneke , Agnes Fink, Elsa Scharoff , Gustl Halenke , Jürgen Goslar , Gerd Grellmann , Demetrius Galbierz , Musa Woettki ( Radio Saarbrücken )
- 1959: The Glass of Water - Director: Wilm ten Haaf ( SR )
Film adaptations
In 1960 Helmut Käutner filmed the material. Liselotte Pulver can be seen as Queen Anna, Hilde Krahl as Duchess and Gustaf Gründgens as Lord Bolingbroke. Horst Janson plays the young officer Arthur who, as a heartbreaker, gets caught between the lines of emotion and politics. He and Sabine Sinjen as lady-in-waiting give the buffet couple . Sinjen's popular chanson by Bernhard Eichhorn is It must be up to Arthur himself / that all women love him .
A glass of water is a German film adaptation from 1923 by Ludwig Berger .
The film The Favorite - intrigues and madness (original title The Favorite ) takes up essential elements of the comedy.
TV versions
In 1962 the material was filmed by Helmut Schiemann for television in the GDR. Queen Anna is portrayed by Christine Gloger , the Duchess by Inge Keller and Lord Bolingbroke by Ferdy Mayne . Claus Jurichs gives the young officer, Eva-Maria Hagen the lady -in- waiting .
A TV version of ZDF is from 1977 : OW Fischer can be seen in the role of Lord Bolingbroke, Maria Becker as Duchess and Susanne Uhlen as Queen Anna. Sylvia Manas also play as Abigail, Oliver Tobias as Masham and Romuald Pekny as Marquis de Torcy. Directed by Wolfgang Luck .
Individual evidence
- ^ Translation by Alexander Cosmar, approx. 1840. Quoted from Andreas Münzmay: Musikdramaturgie und Kulturtransfer . A cross-genre study on the musical theater Eugène Scribes . Schliengen 2010, pp. 304f.
- ↑ Glas Wasser, Das (staged in the 1960s) (1962). Peter Flieher, accessed on September 28, 2018 .