The weavers
| Data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The weavers |
| Genus: | Social drama |
| Original language: | German and Silesian |
| Author: | Gerhart Hauptmann |
| Publishing year: | 1892 |
| Premiere: | September 25, 1894 |
| Place of premiere: | German Theater Berlin |
| Place and time of the action: | in the 1840s in Kaschbach in the Eulengebirge as well as in Peterswaldau and Langenbielau at the foot of the Eulengebirge |
| people | |
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Die Weber ( Silesian: “De Waber”) is a social drama in five acts by Gerhart Hauptmann , published in 1892 . The play, probably Hauptmann's most important drama, deals with the weavers' revolt of 1844 and is assigned to the literary historical epoch of naturalism .
Performance ban and world premiere
On March 3, 1892, the Berlin police headquarters issued a performance ban. Therefore, the premiere could only take place privately for the members of the Freie Bühne on February 26, 1893 in the new theater in Berlin . On October 2, 1893, the Berlin Higher Administrative Court lifted the ban. This in turn was a justification for the so-called coup bill . On September 25, 1894, the first German public performance took place in the Deutsches Theater Berlin .
content
1st act
In the expedition of space-thirties Parchentfabrik delivering Weber from their homework. They are poor, miserable people, emaciated by hunger and need, who ask for a few pfennigs wage increases or a small advance payment.
The standing in the service of thirties clerk Pfeifer but, himself a former Weber and now a zealous martinet, who is responsible for the value of setting homework, krittelt of the delivered stuff around and tried by as many objections to press the starvation wages even further. A young rebellious boy, who is called the “red baker”, but who is the only one who has not criticized anything, protests loudly: These are not wages, but shabby alms. A young boy collapses from exhaustion. The called factory owner Dreißiger, who recognizes one of the boys in Bäcker who sang the forbidden “Song of the Blood Court” (the weavers' song of defiance) the previous evening, is embarrassed by the incident and has the child brought to his private office. With cheap phrases about the responsibility of the employer, he tries to appease the grumbling people and tells them that he will hire 200 new workers. In truth, this social measure is only the pretext to reduce the meter wages by a fifth.
2nd act
The Baumerts people work on looms and bobbins in the cottage of the cottage owner Ansorge. Old Baumert, who has not eaten meat for two years, has slaughtered his little dog and is stewing the cloudy roast in the pot. He has just fetched new weaving yarn and on the way met the reservist Moritz Jäger, who brings a bottle of schnapps with him and tells the weaver people who are listening with open mouth about the splendor of soldier life in the city, but at the same time leads boastful inflammatory speeches. Old Baumert's weakened stomach cannot keep the dog meat with him. He cries, his wife laments over the misery. Moritz Jäger starts the weaver's song, which stimulates the others to show strong determination: It can't go on like this, it has to be different.
3rd act
In Welzel's dining room, a traveler from the city and the carpenter Wiegand talk about the uproar that is brewing among the home workers. The traveler tries at first in a foolish way to hang out with the landlord's daughter, but then his teasing chatter irritates the weavers who join them, which forces him to continue drinking his coffee in the next room. The excitement grows, the young men - spurred on by the smith Wittig - start singing the weaver's song again. When the drunken gendarme Kutsche orders silence, the situation becomes so threatening that the policeman hurries to retreat. The weavers continue to sing the forbidden weaver song on the street.
4th act
In the 1930s villa, the young private tutor Weinhold dares to pose the question of social justice during a small evening party. Pastor Kittelhaus confronts him with his mistake in an unctuous tone, and Thirties refuses to give lectures on humanity; he did not hire the candidate for this. Weinhold goes. The rebellious weavers are on the march. Thirty-something dye works have arrested the ringleader Jäger and are taking him to the manufacturer's villa for interrogation. Jäger gives scornful answers to the police administrator Heide and the pastor. When Heide had him taken away despite the threatening attitude of the weavers rampaging in front of the house, the riot broke out with full force. Hunters are freed, the police are beaten and even the friendly, but utterly distant pastor is mistreated.
Thirties and his family are about to get to a safe place before the weavers break into his villa and look for the man-smuggler Pfeifer, against whom the rage is primarily directed. When they find the whole house empty, they cut everything short and sweet.
5th act
The pious old master weaver Hilse in the neighboring village is appalled by the uprising. The peddler Hornig tells that the raging crowd is on the way to drive away the entrepreneurs here too, but the military has already been mobilized to put down the revolt. Hilse believes that higher justice will intervene, but his daughter-in-law Luise greets the riot with fanatical enthusiasm. The revolting weavers call their comrades out into the street, Hilse's old friend Baumert, encouraged by alcohol, is one of their leaders. The soldiers shoot, the weavers force them to retreat by throwing stones. In stubborn devotion to God, unwilling to take part in the revolt, the one-armed father Hilse remains in his room and continues to work in the place where his heavenly Father has put him. A new volley cracks outside and the old man collapses. A stray bullet killed him.
interpretation
In his most important drama, the leading German proponent of naturalism addresses the fate of a group of Silesian weavers, making an entire social class protagonists of the play in order to illustrate the social and political dimensions of the conflict. Language, situations and realistic “people types” were then seen as revolutionary. The play draws its special drama from its real models: the spontaneous weaver revolts in June 1844 in the Silesian provinces.
The end of the drama and its message is controversial in literary circles. Probably the most accurate interpretation is that Hauptmann not only wanted to show the grievances with his work, but also wanted to call for the revival of the revolution that failed in 1848. Father Hilse, who in his conservative spirit wanted to leave everything as it was, is shot. History has passed him by.
filming
The play was filmed in 1927 under the title Die Weber by Friedrich Zelnik . Paul Wegener and Valeska Stock played the roles of the manufacturer Thirties and his wife , while Wilhelm Dieterle played Moritz Jäger . In 2012 the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation restored the old material and made a new copy. Johannes Kalitzke wrote new music for Zelnik's film; the world premiere by the Augsburg Philharmonic was on June 24, 2012.
In 1980 Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcast a television version of the drama directed by Fritz Umgelter with Klaus Maria Brandauer in the role of Moritz Jäger.
Radio plays
Between 1926 and 1959, at least five radio plays were written in Germany on the subject of Hauptmann's work.
- 1926: Die Weber - Director: Hermann Beyer , with Ernst Sattler , Hedi Bohn , Georg Pahl , Hans Freundt , Karl Pündter ( NORAG )
- 1926: Die Weber - Director: Alfred Braun ( Funk-Stunden AG (Berlin) )
- 1949: Die Weber - Director: Werner Wieland , with Martin Flörchinger , Ludwig Anschütz , Curt Paulus , Fritz Werth , Maria Wendt ( Broadcasting of the GDR )
- 1952: Die Weber - Director: Ulrich Lauterbach , with Stanislav Ledinek , Walter Tarrach , Walter Werner , Wilhelm König , Alfred Schieske ( HR )
- 1959: Die Weber - Director: Heinz-Günter Stamm , with Paul Dahlke , Eva L'Arronge , Bum Krüger , Max Eckard , Wolfgang Wahl , Herbert Kroll ( BR )
Remarks
- ^ Theodor Fontane : Theater reviews. Fourth volume 1884-1894 . Edited by Siegmar Gerndt. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-548-04540-5 , p. 301.
- ^ "Die Weber" by Friedrich Zelnik ( Memento from July 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Silent movie. arte , August 28, 2012.
- ↑ Die Weber - Director: Fritz Umgelter. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
- ↑ Die Weber in the Internet Movie Database (English)
See also
literature
- Franz Mehring : Gerhart Hauptmann's "Weber" . In: The new time . Revue of intellectual and public life , 11.1892-93, 1st volume (1893), issue 24, pp. 769-774, fes.de
- Rüdiger Bernhardt: Gerhart Hauptmann: The weavers. (King's Notes and Materials, 189). Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-8044-1785-4 .
- Lutz Kroneberg: The weavers. Acting from the forties. From Gerhart Hauptmann . In: Harro Müller-Michaels (Hrsg.): German dramas. Interpretations on works from the Enlightenment to the present. Volume 2: From Hauptmann to Botho Strauss . 2nd Edition. Koenigstein / Ts. 1985, pp. 3-23. (See also comments by Lutz Kroneberg 2007 on www.manteion.de)
- Hans Schwab-Felisch : Gerhart Hauptmann. The weavers. Poetry and Reality . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1963. (9th edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-548-24047-X )
Web links
- Literature by and about Die Weber in the catalog of the German National Library
- Digital copies: 1 - Internet Archive - 2 - Internet Archive - 3 - Internet Archive