The dear relatives
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| Title: | The dear relatives |
| Genus: | Posse with singing in five acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Johann Nestroy |
| Literary source: | The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens |
| Music: | Michael Hebenstreit |
| Publishing year: | 1848 |
| Premiere: | May 21, 1848 |
| Place of premiere: | Carltheater |
| Place and time of the action: | The action takes place partly in a small country town, partly in the residence, partly on Stachlbaum's country house. From the first to the 2 th Act is one week, from 2 th to 3 th one week, from the 3 th to 4 th one year from the 5 th to the 5 th one Monath as interim to accept |
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Die liebe Anverwandten is a farce with singing in five acts by Johann Nestroy . The first performance took place on May 21, 1848 in the Vienna Carltheater as a benefit performance for the poet.
content
The millionaire Stachlbaum despises all of his relatives as inheritance stealers, he has even cast out his grandson Victor because he does not consent to a wedding he has arranged. Victor, himself a stubborn egoist, loves Marie, the only one Stachlbaum has an affection for. When he has to stay overnight in an inn in Edelschein's place of residence, this scheming hypocrite tries to change Stachlbaum's rejection of him.
- "Enlighten him radiant sky, schleud're Erkenntnißflammen in the Gemüthsnacht this dark misery old man!" (I. Act, 6 th Scene)
Stachlbaum is sick in the inn and has to listen to Edelschein Marie calling an inheritance sneak and swearing revenge on him. Out of defiance, Victor moved in with Edelschein, where he and his daughters happily accepted him. The simple-minded but loyal Famulus Lampl extols Edelschein's virtues in the highest tones.
The Edelschein family traveled to the residence for some time, where they enjoyed themselves socially and met Mr. von Kammberg as a marriage prospect. Stachlbaum appears surprisingly and makes Edelschein the offer to live with him in the future, which he immediately accepts. He believes that this will enable him to take Stachlbaum completely for himself.
- "Up to the threshold of the house made happy we let the cheers accompany old man." (Act II. 9 th Scene)
Stachlbaum had Victor expelled from the house, who then emigrated to America with his loyal servant Rottner. Kammberg wants to marry Betty, which Euphrosine deeply annoys - he haggles openly with Edelschein for the highest possible dowry.
Since Stachlbaum has aged a lot, Edelschein hopes that he will die soon, because the dowry for Betty and the one soon afterwards for Euphrosine has made him almost bankrupt. He also advertises unabashedly for Marie, but also only to calculate the inheritance. In a couplet he sings about the confusing courses of time (after the March Revolution ):
- "[...] Bey the elections by votes, the mistake is also that
- Some people have their voices, and they don't know what for;
- Some people have run into Frankfurt as voters,
- Knows except d'Frankfurter sausages from Frankfurt nothing. " (IV. Act 4 th Scene)
Lampl brings a letter from Victor for Marie, who can finally open his eyes to Edelschein's true character. Therefore he says, deeply disappointed, the service. A little later, Victor - who was unsuccessful in America - returns poor but better. Stachlbaum wants to give away his entire fortune on this very day and Edelschein is sure to be the beneficiary. Victors' attempt to reconcile with his uncle is prevented by Edelschein, and Stachlbaum is also aloof from his nephew. However, when the deed of donation was read out, Edelschein was horrified to see that Stachlbaum's behavior was a cruel game with him: Since he had once insulted Marie so badly, Stachlbaum made sure that he lost all of his fortune through the dowry payments, so that he is now through destroy the transfer of all his goods to Victor and Marie.
- "How do you then equal beym first sight defiled this innocent angelic creature with the drool of your unworthiness, as did I thee to swear revenge quite eig'ner kind." (V. Act, 14 th Scene)
In the end it turns out that Victor's defiant reaction because of the arranged marriage only arose from a lack of clarifying conversation between uncle and nephew and was completely pointless - because Stachlbaum wanted to marry the two at the time anyway.
Factory history
Nestroy's source for this piece was the novel The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit) by Boz (pseudonym for Charles Dickens , 1812-1870), which the latter wrote between 1843 and 1844. Boz / Dickens' work was initially published as a delivery novel from January 1843 in nineteen episodes, in July 1844 - with the last episode - the English book version was published. The German-language translations were also published in this form based on the English deliveries from 1843 onwards. Of the four translations available at the time, the text of Ernest Aubrey Moriarty was compared to that of the original.
Nestroy read Moriarty's book soon after its publication in 1844, as can be seen from some of the notes he made for future reference. At least three ideas from Dickens' work can already be recognized in his work The Two Gentlemen Sons (1845). In his reworking of the Dickens novel, he completely omitted two storylines, namely the adventures of Victor / Martin in America and the crime story about the fraudulent life insurance company Tigg / Schwimmels. He also eliminated some of the characters, merged or reworked other characters. Since large parts of the novel are kept in dialogue form - a typical peculiarity of delivery novels to scuffle lines - he was able to take over entire passages almost unchanged. The starting point, the misunderstanding between Stachlbaum and Victor, is a subject that occurs frequently in comedy and, as so often, anticipates the "happy ending". The modest space occupied by the act of love is typical of Nestroy, as is the wedding and inheritance at the end. Among the fictional characters, Nestroy picked out those who are important for the comic scenes, deleted others (practically all relatives) or dismissed them in a few sentences (Chevy Slime / Wolkner, Montague Tigg / Schwimmel, Mrs. Gamp / Mrs. Platzerin). Nestroy only had the inn staff (Salerl, Franz) and the doctor Dr. Invented funk.
In Barbara Rita Krebs you can read that Die liebe Anverwandten is one of the five worst-failed pieces by Nestroy, the other four being Der Zauberer Sulphurelectrimagneticophosphoratus (1834), An apartment is for rent in the city (1837), Just rest! (1843) and Secret Money, Secret Love (1853). Director Carl Carl had saved up on the stage decorations, Nestroy was not saddled up, the prompter (according to contemporary reports) was intrusive. The couplet of Act IV angered the public because the poet, in their eyes, mocked the successes of the revolution. The piece Liberty in Krähwinkel (1848) that followed soon after is seen by some literary historians as an "apology to the Viennese patriots", so to speak.
Otto Basil writes that Nestroy "pale and trembling" locked himself in his cloakroom because of the stormy protests , while Director Carl tried to calm the audience down. Even Helmut Ahrens describes this scene with chants ( "abbitten! Abbitten! Abbitten!" ), As well as attempts of the audience to storm the stage and beat up the actor. However, neither of them cite a source for this drastic description and nothing of it can be found in the works about Carl's time as director - Friedrich Kaiser ( theater director Carl ), Adolf Bäuerle ( director Carl ) or Karl Haffner ( Scholz and Nestroy ).
Johann Nestroy played the Edelschein, Wenzel Scholz the Lampl family, Alois Grois the Stachlbaum, Franz Gämmerler the Herr von Kammberg. After the failure at the premiere, the piece was shortened by Nestroy, so that the characters Wolkner and Schwimmel no longer appeared. The piece did not see more than a total of three performances.
The original manuscript of Nestroy, with the cover sheet, title and list of persons missing, has been preserved, as is a manuscript of Act IV with a song and monologue of Edelschein. A manuscript of the rough version is also preserved in fragments, on the cover sheet the originally intended title Ich has been crossed out and replaced with Anverwandte .
Contemporary reception
The catastrophic reception of the play was reported in all theater magazines - almost everywhere, however, it was also pointed out that Nestroy had already delivered a number of excellent stage plays and that similar ones could be expected from him in the future. The critics, however, complained very much that the poet did not understand how to make use of the recently gained freedom from censorship .
The supplementary sheet of the Sunday papers reported one day after the first performance, on May 22, 1848 (No. 49, p. 204):
- “The greatest crime a dramatic writer, ever a writer, can commit is - being bored. […] The presented farce would have been with the omission of some couplets just as below that for loyal service with 16,000 florins. retired Excellenzspitzel can be listed as now; it almost seems that it was still created under Sedlnitzky's haze. "
The humorist , always ready to take a critical look at Nestroy's works, wrote on May 23 (vol. 12, no. 123, p. 510):
- "But the excellent novel turned into a terribly boring farce."
The same reviewer also wrote the criticism in the Wiener Zeitschrift on the same day (vol. 33, no. 105, p. 419):
- "Incidentally, we have taken an excuse that the play was probably written before the revolution, because the prompter Nestroy prompted so loudly that he had to be called to quiet."
The most detailed review was in Wanderer , also from May 23rd (No. 123, no page numbers), but with a corruption of Dickens' original title:
- “It still has to be noted that the subject is not an original, but, as I remember exactly, after Boz's 'Martin Guglewitz'. But what becomes highly characteristic through Boz's description in the novel is useless for the farce and extremely bland in its presentation. The house was incredibly full. "
In the Wiener Theaterzeitung it was mentioned after the criticism of the play that Nestroy was already working on a new play calculated “according to the prevailing requirements” (quote). It was about the already mentioned work Freiheit in Krähwinkel .
Later interpretations
Otto Rommel calls Nestroy's treatment superficial, so the rejection was entirely justified. The form of a five-act farce with singing was enough to cope with Paul de Kock's La maison blanche as happiness, abuse and return , but it was too narrow for Dickens' epic masterpiece.
Helmut Ahrens describes Nestroy's attempt to compress the 1000-page novel into a 100-page theatrical manuscript as an all too daring task, as it was the most demanding text he dared to edit. The violent reactions to his couplet about the National Assembly in Frankfurt (see above) would have completely surprised and shocked him and would have been the reason for deleting these passages.
Mautner criticizes that the poet, in order to appear up-to-date, “subsequently peppered the text with political aperçus, showy jokes and couplet verses” (quote).
Walla states that Nestroy has found the right introduction with his ironic title of "dear" relatives, to which the arguing daughters and the father who absolutely wants to marry them fit perfectly. With his figure (Edelschein) he drew the theme of hypocrisy, bigotry and deception, in the figures of the impostor Wolkner, the deceitful Schwimmel, the selfish lazy Frau Platzerin, the hot-blooded but actually cowardly Gluth, the aristocratic Kammberg, who is still kinky a hodgepodge haggle about the dowry, not unnecessary secondary characters brought to the stage - commented by Victor saying: "Everyone is his own neighbor!" (I. Act, 8 th Scene)
Barbara Krebs, who, as already mentioned, counts this piece among Nestroy's greatest failures, gives the reason that the poet almost did not react, or at least only inadequately, to the “break in politics of the day” - the Vienna March Revolution. The current political reference seemed to the audience too thinly constructed with the seemingly superimposed couplets, it only saw a "revolutionary trimming" (quote). The failure and the sharp reactions of the audience are therefore only partly to blame for the undoubted weakness of the piece, as well as, if not more, the political and social circumstances of the time. But the selection of the source, namely the novel by Charles Dickens, which can hardly be dramatized on the stage, also contributes a lot.
literature
- Helmut Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself off to the laurel. Johann Nestroy, his life. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-7973-0389-0 .
- Barbara Rita Krebs: Nestroy's Failures: Aesthetic and Social Conditions. Diploma thesis at the humanities faculty of the University of Vienna, Vienna 1989.
- Otto Rommel: Nestroys Works. Selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.
- Friedrich Walla (Ed.): Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. In: Jürgen Hein , Johann Hüttner , Walter Obermaier , W. Edgar Yates : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, Historical-Critical Edition. Franz Deuticke Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-216-30346-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stachlbaum , after a few attempts - Stachelheim, Stachelgrund - a descriptive name found by Nestroy for this "rebellious figure"
- ↑ Edelschein , after a few attempts - Seelenglanz, Edelherz - a speaking name found by Nestroy
- ↑ Mechanikus = manufacturer of mathematical and physical tools ( Brockhaus Encyclopedia )
- ↑ Euphrosine = Frohsinn, one of the three Charites , ironic for the sour older daughter
- ↑ Lampl , speaking name because of the character's good nature and naivete
- ↑ Famulus = assistant to a scholar or doctor
- ↑ Kammberg = ironic reference to the saying “his comb is swollen”; on the playbills Kamberg written
- ↑ Foggy = compare the expression "foggy"
- ↑ Aventurier = French for adventurers
- ↑ Schwimmel = indication either to "swim", to have a dizziness, or to stagger while drunk, to swarm at night
- ↑ Agent = here business intermediary, authorized representative
- ↑ Salerl = dialect for Rosalie
- ^ Walla: Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. P. 15.
- ^ Walla: Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. P. 43.
- ↑ a b Walla: Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. P. 75.
- ^ Walla: Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. P. 97.
- ↑ Ernest Aubrey Moriarty: Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. His relatives, friends and enemies, his poetry and costumes. From Boz (Dickens). Translated from the English by EA Moriarty. With 40 steel engravings based on original drawings by PHIZ. Leipzig, Verlag von JJ Weber, 1843. Facsimile of the book cover in Walla: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 25 / II. P. 514.
- ^ Walla: Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. Pp. 128-135.
- ↑ Barbara Rita Krebs: Nestroys Failures , pp. 9-10.
- ↑ a b Ahrens: I am not auctioning myself off to the laurel. P. 303.
- ↑ Otto Basil: Johann Nestroy in self-testimonies and image documents. rororo Bildmonographien, Volume 132, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1967, p. 123 f.
- ↑ Facsimiles of the theater tickets for the first and third performances in Walla: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 25 / II. Pp. 528-529.
- ↑ Manuscript collection in the Vienna City Hall , call number IN 33.380, 36.761.
- ↑ Manuscript collection of the Vienna library in the town hall , call number IN 39.416.
- ^ Walla: Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. Pp. 222-228. (for the entire chapter on contemporary reception )
- ↑ fl. CM = guilder in convention coin ; From 1811 to 1858 the convention coin was worth considerably more than the paper currency of Vienna (WW, mockingly apostrophized by Nestroy in the piece with "Weh! Weh!" ) because of the national bankruptcy of 1811 )
- ^ Otto Rommel: Nestroys works. S. LXXVIII.
- ↑ Helmut Ahrens: I am not auctioning myself off to the laurel. Pp. 299-303.
- ^ Franz H. Mautner: Nestroy , Heidelberg 1974, p. 281.
- ^ Walla: Johann Nestroy, pieces 25 / II. P. 12.
- ↑ Barbara Rita Krebs: Nestroys Failures , pp. 80–84.