Michael Kramer (Drama)
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| Title: | Michael Kramer |
| Genus: | Artist drama |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Gerhart Hauptmann |
| Publishing year: | 1900 |
| Premiere: | December 21, 1900 |
| Place of premiere: | German Theater Berlin |
| Place and time of the action: | around 1900 in a Prussian provincial capital on the Oder |
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Michael Kramer is a naturalistic drama in four acts by the German writer Gerhart Hauptmann from 1900 . The world premiere took place on December 21 of the same year in the Deutsches Theater Berlin .
content
The painter Michael Kramer got a job as a teacher at a state art school through diligence and ambition. Despite all the enthusiasm that he can convey to his students, he does not see himself as an “outstanding talent”. Above all, he struggles with the fact that he has not made any progress on his major work project, a depiction of Christ, for years.
He also trained his children to be painters, with varying degrees of success. His daughter Michaline is just as hardworking and ambitious as he is, but she has a hard time with her father, as he does not see her as particularly talented. It is quite different with his son Arnold , in whose sketches the father recognizes artistic genius. Arnold, however, has developed into a "good-for-nothing" and nocturnal drifter who finds nothing except for small caricatures and rejects the "philistine" life that surrounds him.
(Act 1) The Kramers receive a visit from the quarreling Lachmanns. Years ago, Ernst Lachmann was an enthusiastic student of Kramer, but did not make a breakthrough artistically and worked as a newspaper writer. His appearance is also a visit to the place of his past youth when he had his eye on Michaline.
(Act 2) The conflict between father and son comes to a head again after the landlord's daughter Liese Bänsch complained to Kramer that Arnold was harassing her by not leaving her alone as a restaurant guest and staring at her for hours. Kramer realizes that his son is on a very dangerous path and tries to change his mind by pleading and threatening, but Arnold is outwardly unmoved and lies to his father.
(3rd act) Arnold visits the Bänsch restaurant again the following evening. As usual, he tries unsuccessfully to start a conversation with the landlord's daughter and messes with the regulars' table brothers - middle-class, but raw and cynical people. Liese, too, becomes the subject of the bad taste of the gentlemen, including her fiancé. That evening the skirmishes in the regulars' table escalated to such an extent that Arnold pulled a revolver. The gentlemen can snatch the revolver from him, but Arnold manages to escape them. Michaline and Lachmann, who happen to be sitting in the tavern, witness the escape and go in search of Arnold.
(4th act) Arnold, who was found the next morning, is laid out in Kramer's studio. Apparently he had killed himself. Those present - Michael Kramer, Michaline, Lachmann and at times Liese Bänsch - try to process what happened. The father reflects on his difficult relationship with his deceased son, possible missed opportunities for salvation and death as a way out for a desperate person, but also glorifies Arnold through references to Jesus Christ and Ludwig van Beethoven .
background
Hauptmann also processed autobiographical elements in this drama. His own art studies ( sculpture ) at the Royal Art and Trade School in Breslau (on the Oder, at the time the provincial capital) were changeable and ultimately unsuccessful. After completing his studies, he was unable to establish himself as a sculptor and only then turned to writing. His son Ivo , who was 14 when the novel was written , showed an early interest in painting and later became a well-known painter.
expenditure
- Gerhart Hauptmann: Michael Kramer . Kindler, 1900.
- Gerhart Hauptmann: Michael Kramer , drama in 4 acts, S. Fischer, Berlin 1920-1942.
- Gerhart Hauptmann: Michael Kramer . Reclam, Stuttgart 1953-1994, ISBN 3-15-007843-1 .
Currently not available in printed form in bookshops.
- Gerhart Hauptmann: Michael Kramer . E-book, Paperless 2017, ISBN 978-88260-2766-1 .
- Full text by Michael Kramer at Projekt Gutenberg
literature
- Rudolf Mittler: Theory and Practice of Social Drama with Gerhart Hauptmann (German texts and studies; 23). Olms, Hildesheim 1985, ISBN 3-487-07630-6 (also dissertation, University of Münster 1985).