Tangled story!

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Data
Title: Tangled story!
Genus: Posse with singing in 2 acts
Original language: German
Author: Johann Nestroy
Music: Carl Franz Stenzl
Publishing year: 1850
Premiere: June 22, 1850
Place of premiere: Carltheater in Vienna
Place and time of the action: The action takes place in Kessel's brewery pub near a large city
people
  • Kessel , brewery owner
  • Pauline , his ward
  • Mathilde , his sister-in-law
  • Barrel , beer guide
  • Dust , a scholar
  • Wachtl
  • Stern , Architect
  • Agnes , taker of money in the brewery pub
  • Franz , a relative of Kessel and his head waiter
  • Brewhouse servants

Tangled story! is a farce with singing in 2 acts by Johann Nestroy . The first performance took place anonymously on June 22, 1850 in the Vienna Carltheater . On April 29, 1858 , the play was re-performed in a one-act version in favor of the director and actor at the Carltheater Johann Baptist Lang.

content

The wealthy heiress Pauline and Stern had a letter love affair so far, but now Stern wants to return home from Rome and the two will see each other for the first time. Both Kessel and Franz are also in love with Pauline. Kessel forges an intrigue to divide the couple, he instructs Fass, his politicizing beer leader, to hire a Stern doppelganger who is supposed to convince Pauline of the unworthiness of her lover through impossible behavior:

“Larifari! Someone should appear as that, but that must be someone who brings her a degout of himself, then, I know, she falls into my arms without decency. And Degoutmacher you shall find. " (I. Act, 3 te  Scene)

At the same time, Pauline wants to test her still unknown lover with the help of the elderly Mathilde: Mathilde should pretend to be the rich heiress, if Stern takes her for the money anyway, then she doesn't want him. Mathilde dresses up as youthful, hoping to win Stern over. Franz threatens Pauline to shoot himself out of spurned love, but Agnes discovers that he only has a tap in his hand. Fass has hired Wachtl, who is, however, Stern's servant and used to have a relationship with Agnes when both were still amateurish at the theater. When Mathilde comes as Pauline and she as her maid, Wachtl is appalled by the elderly "fiancée", but still courted her because of the money. The real star appears and Wachtl cheekily claims that he is the real master, Stern just the disobedient servant. Kessel has Stern thrown out by his servants.

However, Pauline has doubts and believes that she has recognized the true star. He is deeply disappointed with his alleged bride, but has fallen head over heels in love with the "maid" Pauline. Fass reveals the intrigue and reveals Pauline's true position:

"There is no Loth Stubenmädl off all pure Fräu'le Paulin." (II. Act 3 te  Scene)

Offended, Stern wants to turn the tables and now, for his part, let Pauline believe that he really is the servant. Dust, hired by Franz as a false star, confuses the situation even more. Pauline now wants to marry Kessel because she feels betrayed by everyone else. But in the end everything dissolves for the better and the right people come together - Stern and Pauline, Wachtl and Agnes. Kessel is angry, the politically obsessed barrel finds a fitting conclusion:

“The master marries the lady, the servant the servant - where is the general intermingling of classes! - o Germany, you are still far from our goal! " (Act II, the 14th th  Scene)

Factory history

A possible template cannot be determined, nor is the exact history of its origin known. Very fast production can be assumed, as the piece premiered seven weeks after the premiere of Alles will den Prophet'n seh'n (May 4, 1850). Nestroy made use of existing situations and types of people from his fund: the unknown groom, the unknown bride, the testing of loyalty by exchanging people, the scholar who constantly utters Latin sentences, the "late girl" behaving in a youthful manner, the constant mix-ups and Fass's political slogans are also known from other of his plays.

So the loyalty test is already made in An apartment is for rent in the city (1837) by Amalie, who, however, loses her bridegroom August to Luise; the scholar resembles this figure from Prince Frederick of Corsica (between 1822 and 1826/27) in every detail ; Pauline's addiction to a novel can already be found in Marie in the caricature Charivari with marriage purpose (1850), here the role reversal is also brought onto the stage; the barrel, which simply uses political sentences, resembles the bramar-based Hyginus Heigeign from Lady and Schneider (1849); the adolescent Mathilde finds her counterpart in Lucia Distel from love stories and marriage matters (1843). All these recourse, however, fizzled out ineffectively, the piece suffered from diarrhea.

Although Nestroy tried to soften the sometimes translucent brutality of the beer guide Fass with humor, the figure remains all in all a radical (according to the diction at the time, a “communist”, copied from Barnabas Wühlhuber from the Flying Leaves ):

“But if my system works - then - then many a victim of my revenge will fall. They are on the death list here. The G'meind'wirth who no longer wants to write down for me - dies. The tailor, to whom I am supposed to pay a new fee, what I have long torn up - dies. The shoemaker, whose account I consider below my dignity, because he also aids our opponents - dies - and so a lot of people die - but everything only happens when I come to government as a people's man. " (I. Act , 4 th  Scene)

In the one-act rerun on April 29, 1858, Nestroy transformed German foolishness into a veneration of America, especially the Mormons , while maintaining the fantasies of egalitarianism. This is astonishing because the Mormons were almost unknown in Austria at the time.

In the performance on June 22, 1850, Johann Nestroy played the Wachtl, Wenzel Scholz the beer guide Fass, Alois Grois the brewery owner Kessel and Franz Gämmerler the architect Stern. In the one-act version of April 29, 1858, Nestroy played the barrel, Wilhelm Knaack played the guard and Elise Zöllner played the money collector Agnes.

In 1850 the second play of the evening was performed for the first time in the theater by Friedrich Kaiser with Nestroy, Scholz, Gämmerler and Grois; In 1858 there were two one-act plays, Alles mit Dampf and Der Eisoß , both by Anton Bittner , with Nestroy and Karl Treumann . These three pieces were also unsuccessful with audiences and critics.

A handwritten writing by Nestroy under the title Complicated History has been preserved in two parts, it was previously referred to separately as "manuscript" and "draft fragment", but belongs together. The pages are divided into three parts, the wide central column contains the text, additions, corrections and additions are made to the narrow outer columns.

Stenzl's own incomplete score has also been preserved, it is entitled Couplett. Nestroy. Tangled story. Only the couplet of cask (I Act, 4 th  scene), the text is lost, is contained therein. It bears the old signature of the Carltheater C. T. 68 and the designation Lf: 759. The fact that it is a handwritten writing was proven by comparisons with other autographs by Stenzl.

After 1858 the piece was no longer performed, either as a two-act or one-act act. There is, however, a slightly shortened radio play recording on ORF from March 16, 1958. Hugo Gottschlich (Wachtl), Rudolf Rhomberg (barrel), Oskar Wegrostek (boiler), Bibiana Zeller (Pauline), Gusti Wolf (Agnes ) read under the direction of Otto Ambros ), Hans Putz (Franz), Franz Böheim (Staub) and Kurt Heintel (Stern). This recording was broadcast again on March 1, 1992 (Shrove Tuesday).

Contemporary reception

Both the 1850 and 1858 performances received consistently negative reviews. While in 1850 only a few magazines took notice of Nestroy's play at all, in 1858 the author's acting was highly praised.

  • 1850:

In the foreign paper of June 23, 1850 (No. 148) was only briefly under the "daily news":

“The farce 'Verwickelte Geschichte', which was given for the first time yesterday in the Carl Theater, did not appeal. The worn-out intrigue that someone else pretends to be the bridegroom and someone else for the bride forms the basis. The game was good, the house was full. "

The Wanderer of June 24, 1850 (No. 293, Abendblatt) reported almost identically and praised the acting performances of Scholz and Nestroy:

"The farce 'Verwickelte Geschichte', which was given the day before yesterday at the Carltheater, could not take hold because the material is too used up to arouse even the slightest interest."

While Moritz Gottlieb Saphir's Der Humorist (June 25, No. 151, p. 604) criticized Saphir sharply as almost always, this time even the Nestroy-friendly Wiener Theaterzeitung (June 25, No. 159, p. 595) was by Adolf Bäuerle was more reluctant to praise and, apart from a few puns and comic situations, did not have anything positive to report.

  • 1858:

In Wanderer of April 30, 1858 (No. 98, Abendblatt) a very negative criticism appeared the very next day:

“Three plays and three defeats - then enough would actually be said about Hernn Lang's benefit yesterday at the Carltheater. After the second, the author was called out somewhat laboriously, but that only proves how popular Mr. Nestroy is with his audience, otherwise the same thing was bored equally in all three antics. "

The foreign paper (No. 98) and Die Presse (No. 98) of the same day also agreed with the general tenor of the rejection. In the Ost-Deutsche Post of May 1st (No. 99) Nestroy's play was still accepted to some extent, but the other two were panned.

Only the theater newspaper from May 1st (No. 99, p. 395) wrote a somewhat positive review about the performance, less about the plays themselves; Nestroy's portrayal of the beer guide Fass was particularly praised:

"What does that prove? It is true that in both cases [Bittner's antics] the performance was able to animate the audience in such a way that they knew how to laugh heartily at the game, but that they had not missed the hollowness of the novelties. [...] In his posture, gestures and facial expressions, the ingenious actor developed all the peculiarities of his portrayal. Stormy applause, which broke out when Nestroys entered the scene and lasted for minutes, accompanied his game throughout the evening. "

Later interpretations

Otto Rommel claims, a complicated story! I had less success than the other three premieres of 1850 in the Carltheater, namely you shouldn't have it , cartoon charivari with the purpose of marriage and everything wants to see the prophet . He puts the play - in the opinion of other literary historians, wrongly - in the category of "political work".

Helmut Ahrens only briefly notes that these four premieres in 1850, mentioned by Rommel, all suffered from diarrhea - all of them together would actually only be “comedians on the back burner” (quote).

In Otto Forst de Battaglia we can read that Nestroy was attesting to a noticeable decline in his creative power at this time, he notes an echo of the revolution of 1848 and also recognizes a political tendency in the text. However, he certainly wants to recognize Nestroy's "dramatic admonitions to live a peaceful bourgeoisie".

Walter Obermaier calls the work, in spite of the high number of mentions in literature, by far the weakest and most fleetingly worked piece by Nestroy from this already weak creative period. Awaken it

"The impression of a rather lackluster written opportunity Posse, with its two acts more superficial satisfaction of the needs of the board for shorter novelties arose as an only reasonably convincing incidence of its author." .

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 .
  • Walter Obermaier (Ed.): Johann Nestroy, pieces 29. In: Jürgen Hein , Johann Hüttner , Walter Obermaier, W. Edgar Yates : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, historical-critical edition. Franz Deuticke Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-216-30340-3 .
  • Otto Rommel: Nestroys Works. Selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.

Remarks

  1. ↑ means Vienna
  2. ↑ speaking name, from the brewing kettle ; Speaking names could be found in every piece of Nestroy
  3. ↑ Bräuhaus = brewery
  4. ↑ Speaking name, from the beer barrel
  5. ↑ Speaking name, "dust-dry" scholar
  6. ↑ Cash collector = payment waiter, cashier Archived copy ( memento of the original dated August 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cafe-wien.at
  7. ↑ Larifari = senseless chatter; from the Italian Tonbezeichnung la re fa re formed
  8. ↑ degout = from the French dégoût: disgust, aversion, disgust
  9. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 115.
  10. ↑ Loth, Lot = old weight unit from 17 to 17.5 g
  11. ↑ Fräu'le, Fräulein = form of address for unmarried women of high class
  12. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 134.
  13. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 146.
  14. ^ Communist = then also the name of the Paris Commune of 1871; no equality with today's political term meant
  15. ↑ this figure also occurs cartoons Charivari with Heurathszweck on
  16. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 116.
  17. ↑ Facsimiles of the two theater bills in Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 29. pp. 380–381.
  18. ↑ Manuscript collection of the Vienna library in the town hall , call numbers IN 34.544 and 94.353.
  19. ↑ Music collection of the Austrian National Library , signature Mus.Hs. 8596.
  20. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 29. pp. 320–331. (for the entire chapter on contemporary reception )
  21. ^ Rommel: Nestroys Works. S. LXXIX and note 1.
  22. ↑ Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself off to the laurel. P. 327.
  23. ↑ Otto Forst de Battaglia: Johann Nestroy, appraiser of people, magician of the word. Leipzig 1932, p. 95.
  24. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 103.