The happy vineyard

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Tourist information sign The cheerful vineyard in Nackenheim

The Merry Vineyard is one of Carl Zuckmayer penned comedy that on 22 December 1925 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm premiered in Berlin, after it was initially rejected in the fall of 1925 from all stages in Berlin. It is considered the writer's literary breakthrough.

To the piece

The cheerful vineyard is a socially critical new folk piece that is set in the milieu of winemakers , wine merchants , boatmen and petty bourgeoisie . The life-loving, coarse-realistic folk play was a resounding success in Berlin in the 1920s and was the most popular play at that time. The author had recently been awarded the Kleist Prize by Paul Fechter . The exalted, untamed and yet emotional and expressive language is characterized by exclamations and forceful expressions. In addition, Zuckmayer uses some self-written songs.

Structure and locations

Production design from the play The Happy Vineyard , Hebbel Theater , Berlin, 1945

The play takes place, without a precise location, in the autumn of 1921 in a fictional Rhine-Hessian wine-growing village with a view of the Rhine. The action begins in the late afternoon and ends in the early hours of the morning. The play is divided into three acts that take place in the following locations:

  • the Gunderloch house
  • the land crown, economy of the Eismayer
  • the garden of the Gunderloch winery

language

The characters do not speak any direct dialect, although the piece is sometimes performed in colloquial language. It is also noticeable that the people speak in a language that is appropriate to their social status. According to Zuckmayer's stage directions, the pronunciation “does not depend on philological accuracy, but on the melody and the character, which is by no means idyllic”.

content

The piece reflects the fate of young Klärchen, who is supposed to get engaged to a couleur student in order to present his father, the landowner Gunderloch, with a legitimate heir, which he himself was denied.

Leading roles

Jean Baptiste Gunderloch

Jean Baptiste is a vital aging winery owner and at the same time Klärchen's biological father. He wants to sell his winery so that he can retire to Homburg vor der Höhe and, on the other hand, know that his daughter and her future husband are in safe conditions. For him, this includes the fact that Klärchen has a legitimate child, which he himself was not allowed to do. Selfish as he is, he does not recognize that Klärchen has a mind of her own and, partly out of spite, does not do what he wants her to do.

Klärchen Gunderloch

Klärchen wants to accept her father's decision, but implement it differently than he thinks, because she wants to marry out of love. Klärchen is boiling with jealousy when she finds a note from her lover (Jochen Most) in which he raves about a certain Hannelore - not realizing that it is not a woman, but a barge that Jochen wants to buy, Klärchen to offer a secure future. When the two want to run away, they are brought together again by Annemarie. Gunderloch also realizes that he needs a happy daughter, without whom he cannot be a happier reindeer .

Annemarie Most

She is the approx. 50-year-old housekeeper of the landlord and sister of Jochen Most. She secretly dreams of living with Gunderloch on the winery.

Jochen Most

He is a penniless boatman, often appears raw and primitive, but is sensitive. He is mainly in love with Klärchen, but is offended when she promises him that the man she will marry will no longer have to worry about money.

Knuzius

He is snooty and selfish, but is stiff and charming. At the beginning he lets himself be put up with by Klärchen, but only has the winery in mind. That is why he would like to have a child with Klärchen as quickly as possible, as Gunderloch makes it a condition, and then shirk any further responsibility.

Other actors

Eismayer (landlord), Babettchen Eismeyer (his daughter), Rindsfuß, Mrs. Rindsfuß, Vogelsberger, Stenz, Fräulein Stenz (wine merchant and family), Hahnesand, Löbche Bär (Jewish wine merchant), Kurrle (town clerk and auctioneer), Raunz, Bruchmüller, Chinajockel , Stopski, Ulaneschorsch and other veterans.

reception

The theater critic Alfred Kerr judged the premiere:

“It's still fun. In the first act, when the song of the deer is sung; when the Rhinelander argue more about what to sing; when the big logging breaks out ... and when it comes down to something that resonates in the German heart: the house roars, even more than the mimes. "

After the successful premiere in 1925, more than 100 stages applied for the performance rights. It often generated storms of applause and laughs in the audience, but it also led to protests. Zuckmayer won the Berlin audience, but made many enemies in his home in the Rhine-Hesse region and elsewhere, such as the Nackenheimers , who saw themselves negatively caricatured as provincial citizens , the war veterans , who felt humbled, the church, who got excited about the indecent freedom of movement , and the German-national right - wing press, which was angry with the hollow-headed conservative types.

The comedy led to numerous scandals , mainly because of the parodic portrayal of a corps student . Another stumbling block was the figure of the assessor Knuzius, whose language is interspersed with the political jargon of nationalist circles, and who wallows on the dung heap in one scene, drunk and politicized.

In Mainz , the city ​​theater had to be cordoned off before the first performance because winegrowers from the Rhine-Hesse region combined a demonstration against excessive taxes with an attack on the play. Others, on the other hand, who did not have the ostensible "social ability" of the play in their sights, but seriously grappled with the art of drama and the strength of the play, came to the opposite conclusion. In Munich , the successful play was banned on February 22, 1926 to prevent interference by right-wing groups. The play was banned during the Nazi era.

Even today, the play is one of Zuckmayer's most popular works and is often performed, even by amateur actors.

Film adaptations

The happy vineyard has been filmed three times so far.

The entertainment program, Fröhlicher Weinberg , broadcast on SWR TV has nothing in common with Zuckmayer's play, although the name goes back to the play.

literature

Carl Zuckmayer

  • Collected works: The happy vineyard (paperback), Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-596-12703-3
  • Collected works in individual volumes: The happy vineyard, theater pieces 1917–1925 (paperback), Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-10-096538-8
  • The happy vineyard / Schinderhannes . Two pieces. (Theater radio television). (Special cover), Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 23rd edition, 1994, ISBN 3-596-27007-3
  • As if it were a piece by me (memoirs), Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966, licensed edition Herder-Buchgemeinde, pp. 452–470.

swell

  1. ↑ The term color student refers to a member of a colorful student union .
  2. ^ Carl Zuckmayer: writer, playwright, narrator, lyric poet, screenwriter, essayist ( Memento from October 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : The Merry Vineyard  - Collection of images, videos and audio files