Poland is not lost yet (play)

Poland is not lost yet is the title of a comedy that the Hungarian playwright Melchior Lengyel wrote for his friend Ernst Lubitsch . Lubitsch filmed the subject in 1942 under the title To be or not to be . The theatrical version of the screenplay was written by Jürgen Hofmann and was published under the title “Poland is not yet lost”. The Polish national anthem begins with the words “Poland is not lost yet” .

In 2009 the script was translated again and a new theatrical version was written, which appeared under the name “To be or not to be”. After a three-year holdback of the version “To be or not to be”, which granted exclusivity in the German-speaking area, since November 2011 the Hofmann version “Poland is not lost” can be played again.

Content of the piece

In 1939, in the middle of rehearsals for the Gestapo , a parody of Adolf Hitler , the Posen City Theater was surprised by the occupation of Poland by the Wehrmacht . For fear of provocations, the Polish government forbids the production and instead puts Hamlet on the program. Josef Tura is happy to shine as Hamlet again on stage. But it is strange that in his most important monologue a young pilot lieutenant always leaves the hall when he says to be or not to be .

Tura soon realizes that this young man is rushing to his wife Maria in the cloakroom. Fliegerleutnant Stasnik is not only a born charmer, but also an active fighter in the Polish underground . With the outbreak of war, the Poznan City Theater became the nucleus of a resistance group. When the German SS spied in the theater to track down resistance fighters, the Nazi costumes and talent of the actors prove to be extremely useful weapons. A real struggle to be or not to be begins and lets the actors grow beyond themselves.