The glass of water

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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:

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

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ↑ Glas Wasser, Das (staged in the 1960s) (1962). Peter Flieher, accessed on September 28, 2018 .