Lonely people

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Lonely people is a spectacle in five acts of the German Nobel Prize winner for literature Gerhart Hauptmann , that of 17 August to 23 November 1890 in Charlottenburg arose and on 11 January 1891 by the Free Theater at the Residenz Theater Berlin under the direction of Cord Hachmann with Emanuel Reicher as Johannes Vockerat was premiered. The drama was also on the program at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Burgtheater Vienna in 1891 . In 1891 the text appeared as a preprint in issues 1 to 6 of the Free Stage for Modern Life .

The topic: A weak man - between two women - tortures himself through his weakness.

Gerhart Hauptmann on a painting by Lovis Corinth from 1900

action

1

The 28-year-old scholar Dr. Johannes Vockerat has rented a country house on Müggelsee for four years. Together with his 22-year-old wife Käthe, he has a son who is currently being baptized by the 73-year-old pastor Kollin.

Johannes runs a hospitable house. His childhood friend, the 26-year-old painter Braun, lived there for a while on the Berlin lake. The 24-year-old, almost destitute Zurich student Anna Mahr, who lives in Reval , is traveling from Switzerland and wants to meet the painter. Braun and Miss Anna met at an exhibition in Paris .

Johannes is interested in Anna, talks to her and is soon taken with her education and judgment. When Johannes invites Anna to stay in the country house for a few weeks, his wife Käthe does not contradict, but the young mother secretly begins to cry. Is Käthe, who doesn't understand Johannes' work, but the complete opposite of the self-confident student. And John also told his wife this truth to her face from her narrow horizon.

2

Johannes' mother, the 50-year-old Mrs. Vockerat, looks curiously at what is looming: Finally the son has found a young lady in Anna whom he can show around in his academic castles in the air. While some of Johannes' fellow students have long been civil servants, Johannes still lives his breadless art of scientific research. Braun also accuses the friend of saying that his “psychophysiological writing” is pointless. And as soon as Käthe raises an urgent question concerning the material security of the household, she is put off by her unworldly husband.

3

Kathe curses her miserable life in front of her mother-in-law. Johannes never had it to himself. First the friends had it and now Anna has it.

Mrs. Vockerat reacts. She confronts the son. The young lady from Zurich has to get out of the house. John threatens; indicates his suicide and prevents the mother from chasing the young lady away. Braun also calls his friend to order. Johannes has no hearing and persuades the departing Anna to stay.

4th

Anna makes it clear to Johannes that there must be a separation, but when Braun accuses her of her family-destroying behavior, she vigorously forbids herself.

Mrs. Vockerat does not want to investigate who is seducing whom, but she begs Anna for mercy. The student can reassure Johannes' mother. Your staying is no longer.

5

Johannes rebels against his mother. How can she drive away his guest! The mother called her husband, the richly 60-year-old manor leaseholder Vockerat, for help. The busy father rushes over and accuses the sinful son of weakness in his good-natured manner - seasoned with a suggestion of kindness according to the motto: Do ​​not miss your duty. Johannes doesn't want to hear the old stuff. The father, still good-natured, sticks: he and the mother raised Johannes under hardship and are now demanding reason from him. This is not to be had from the wicked Johannes. It doesn’t matter to the insensitive that his young wife Käthe has meanwhile become mentally ill .

Johannes asks Anna to stay in a big scene. Gerhart Hauptmann's stage directions: "He wraps around her, and both lips are in a single long, fervent kiss, then Anna tears herself free and disappears."

Johannes carries out his threat mentioned above. He goes into the water. The Müggelsee is nearby. Käthe reproaches her parents-in-law: Why did you “push him to extremes”? Before that, Käthe had shown understanding for her Johannes; asked himself: "... what should such a witty and learned man do with you?"

reception

  • 1952: Mayer notices social criticism: Käthe's life is “botched” because the bourgeois daughter was not allowed to learn anything clever. And her spouse Dr. Johannes Vockerat had a dream. Having set out to shake the traditional worldview, he has degenerated into a compromiser. The relationship between the characters Johannes and Anna is reminiscent of Ibsen's Rosmersholm (premiere 1887).
  • 1993: Seyppel calls the piece "the mild intellectual and marital tragedy".
  • 1995: Leppmann writes that Anna Mahr was modeled on the young Polish student Josepha Krzyżanowska. Anna Mahr would be in good company with Lisaweta Iwanowna ( Thomas Mann , Tonio Kröger ), of the same nature as women rushing forward like Berta von Suttner , Lily Braun , Lou Andreas-Salomé and Marie Bashkirtseff . The Russian student Anna had to "leave home because of progressive beliefs" and was the only person with whom the desperate private scholar Johannes Vockerath could talk sensibly. Vockerat fail because of their "own disorientation and overexcitement". Leppmann comments on matters of faith as follows. Although the Protestant Hauptmann was not an atheist , he was skeptical of Christology . Accordingly, Pastor Kollin would appear “full of anointing and conforming to the system” and “make himself comfortable on earth”. And on Vockerat's suicide: "He is ... thrown off course by a" stranger ", a Russian woman who has been trained at the university and is ahead of the moral concepts of her time ...".
  • 1998: Marx quotes Gerhart Hauptmann in 1938: the painter Braun was modeled on his childhood friend, the painter Hugo Ernst Schmidt and Käthe Vockerat was modeled on Hauptmann's wife Marie .
  • 1998: Sprengel certifies Gerhart Hauptmann "a lifelike language of high idiomatic authenticity " and suspects that the author has "dealt with" his brother Carl's marriage crisis. In addition, the location on the Müggelsee refers to the Friedrichshagener poet circle there , specifically to Laura Marholm . As in Hauptmann's drama predecessor Das Friedensfest, a strange young woman triggers the catastrophe as a female intruder into the family to be analyzed.
  • 2012: Sprengel says that the author was inspired by Ibsen in this early drama . The move will follow later.

More premieres

Adaptations

radio play

literature

Book editions

  • Lonely people. Drama. S. Fischer, Berlin 1891
  • Lonely people. Drama. Pp. 259–369 in Gerhart Hauptmann: Selected dramas in four volumes. Vol. 1. With an introduction to the dramatic work of Gerhart Hauptmann by Hans Mayer . 692 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1952 (edition used)

Secondary literature

  • Gerhard Stenzel (Ed.): Gerhart Hauptmann's works in two volumes. Volume II. 1072 pages. Verlag Das Bergland-Buch, Salzburg 1956 (thin print), pp. 1045-1046 table of contents
  • Joachim Seyppel : Gerhart Hauptmann (heads of the 20th century; 121). Revised new edition. Morgenbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-371-00378-7
  • Wolfgang Leppmann : Gerhart Hauptmann. A biography. Ullstein, Berlin 1996 (Ullstein-Buch 35608), 415 pages, ISBN 3-548-35608-7 (identical text with ISBN 3-549-05469-6 , Propylaen, Berlin 1995, subtitled with Die Biographie )
  • Einsame Menschen , pp. 58–64 in: Friedhelm Marx : Gerhart Hauptmann . Reclam, Stuttgart 1998 (RUB 17608, Literature Studies series). 403 pages, ISBN 3-15-017608-5
  • Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1870–1900. From the founding of the empire to the turn of the century. Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44104-1
  • Peter Sprengel: Gerhart Hauptmann. Bourgeoisie and big dream. A biography. 848 pages. CH Beck, Munich 2012 (1st edition), ISBN 978-3-406-64045-2

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Sprengel hits the nail on the head when he scoffs at the fact that the "free spirit-person Vockerat" "ultimately unites with the platonic girlfriend for an adulterous kiss ..." (Sprengel anno 1998, p. 496, 17. Zvo)
  2. ↑ Marx becomes clearer. He quotes Gerhart Hauptmann in 1938: "The role model for Johannes Vockerat is his brother Carl , whose marriage in 1890 by Josepha Krzyżanowska ... got into turmoil ..." (Marx, p. 60,11. Zvu)
  3. ↑ To a certain extent, as Anna Mahr's “sisters” , Agnes Bluhm , Elisabeth Winterhalter and Pauline Rüdin are also mentioned in Sprengel (Sprengel anno 2012, p. 142 middle) - also because the text repeatedly mentions Zurich as a university city .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marx, p. 60, 12. Zvo
  2. ↑ Mayer in the edition used, p. 36, 17. Zvo
  3. ↑ Sprengel anno 1998, p. 497, 13. Zvo
  4. ^ Marx, p. 60 middle
  5. ↑ Marx. P. 164
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 364, 8. Zvo
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 368, 13. Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 366, 7th Zvu
  9. ↑ Mayer in the edition used, pp. 36–38
  10. ↑ Seyppel, p. 26, 10th Zvu
  11. ↑ Leppmann, p. 139 below
  12. ↑ Leppmann, p. 80 middle
  13. ↑ Leppmann, pp. 134-135
  14. ↑ Leppmann, p. 275
  15. ↑ Leppmann, p. 282, 7th Zvu
  16. ^ Hugo Ernst Schmidt in the DB
  17. ↑ Sprengel anno 1998, p. 495 middle to p. 497, 12th Zvu
  18. ↑ Sprengel anno 2012, p. 111 middle
  19. ↑ Sprengel anno 2012, p. 213 bottom and p. 215 middle
  20. ↑ eng. Arts Theater
  21. ↑ November 12, 1958 in Spiegel : Gerhart Hauptmann bite-sized
  22. ↑ 65-min video 2009 in Hamburg at Vimeo
  23. ↑ 22-page pdf on the 2012 staging in Stuttgart