The big city air
The big city air is a Schwank in four acts by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg from 1891.
The piece was on 23 October 1891 at Lessing Theater in Berlin premiered and was in this season played 123 times. In the 1892 season the piece was performed 62 times. It was on the program with two to four performances per season until 1896. Performance on May 15, 1902 in the Arena Baden.
The focus is on father and daughter Schröter from Ludwigswalde . The Berlin engineer Fritz Flemming asked for Sabine Schröter's hand. The father only agrees to the wedding on the condition that the two move with him to the countryside in Ludwigswalde. He fears that the countless temptations of the capital will make it impossible for Flemming to remain loyal. The authors allow a look behind the upper-class facade of Berlin at the end of the 19th century. In addition, the middle-class country life is far from the bustling German capital satirizes .
During the play, the different lifestyles and attitudes towards life between town and country are thematized and humorously presented. These contrasts are also expressed in the stage design proposed by the authors . In the stage directions for the stage set of the first act, which takes place in Berlin, the authors write : "At first glance, all of the furnishings in the room must show a picky, metropolitan taste and with fine carpets, valuable pictures, draped easels, Bronzes, [...] and other tasteful ornaments make an elegant impression. " This contrasts with the description of the stage set in the second act, which takes place in the Schröters' house in Ludwigswalde: “A communal living room [...] which, in its entire furnishings, must stand in a strongly accentuated contrast to the scene of the action in the first act. The decor is wealthy, but shows traces of petty bourgeois taste everywhere. "
Personae dramatis
- Martin Schröter: manufacturer
- Sabine: his daughter
- Walter Lenz: Lawyer
- Antonie: his wife
- Bernhard Gempe: her cousin
- Fritz Flemming: Engineer
- Dr. Crusius
- Miss Dr. Crusius
- Rector Arnstedt
- Mrs. Rector Arnstedt
- Marthe: Maid
- An upholsterer
- A servant
swell
- ↑ See Wilcke, Joachim (1958): The Lessing Theater in Berlin under Oscar Blumenthal (1888–1898). An investigation with special consideration of contemporary theater criticism. Berlin: Univ., Diss., P. 52.
- ↑ Playbill in the Rollett Museum in Baden.
- ↑ Blumenthal, Oscar / Kadelburg, Gustav (unknown) [1894]: Die Großstadtluft. Wavering in four acts. Berlin: Theaterverlag Eduard Bloch, p. 3.
- ↑ ibid., P. 36.