Onlookers
Onlookers is a comedy in one act by Christoph Hein . The text appeared in 1999 within the collection “Christoph Hein. Pieces ”from Aufbau-Verlag Berlin.
The author bases his farce on a sad event from post-war German history: the demolition of the St. Pauli monastery church in Leipzig city center on May 30, 1968.
content
action
Four visitors to a run-down café in the immediate vicinity of the above-mentioned church are served by the waiter Konstantin. Lotte and Luise, two older women, identify Berger, a younger man in civilian clothes, as a "secret" without much guesswork. In front of the café, the police cordoned off the area around the church with a fence. Behind the fence in front of the church there are a number of young people on the ground. There is a rumor that the church will be blown up in two days because of the building vacancy . Before the action on the street escalates in the midst of the students demonstrating against the demolition, the play is about secondary matters. The two women recover from the exertions of a funeral with one peppermint liquor after another. Lotte has paid her last respects to her husband, supported by her friend Luise. The mourner is going through a painful process of recognition. It looks as if the deceased cheated on Lotte with Luise during his lifetime. The "secret" has completely different worries. On the hunt for an exhaust system with a manifold seal for his Trabbi 601 , he was almost there, but on the instructions of his superior, he has to wait at his observation post because of the stupid demo in the café. The pensioner Muschkowski has his experiences from the last war with such gatherings as outside on the church square . To the displeasure of the "secret", the veteran lets his thoughts run free. Only tanks help. Indeed, something like that comes up towards the end of the piece. The state power disperses the students with two water cannons . The "secret" runs out and helps beat up the demonstrators. Then, accidentally caught by the water cannon, he enters the café again, dripping like a bathed mouse, in order to report to his superior on the phone for a fee of 20 pfennigs. Waiter Konstantin approves the call, but does not take the money and asks the secret to get in line quickly for his exhaust in Jahnallee . If, contrary to expectations, he gets another one, he shouldn't wet it right away so that the valuable part doesn't rust.
shape
The viewer of this dialect can learn Saxon from the Silesian Hein . With the exception of the pensioner Muschkowski, four of the five characters are puzzled. The vocabulary includes, for example, "abkräpeln" (scratch off), "escha" (by no means), "Herrjehmerschnee" ( Herrjemine ), the "mehrscht" (most) and "Tralarich" (posse). Not all expressions seem flawless to the Leipzig reader. For example, the Upper German “ fei ” does not appear in this dialect . "Trippeln" is directly misused. The Saxon says for "trickle" to trickle.
literature
Text output
- Used edition
- "Onlookers". P. 129–162 in: Christoph Hein: Pieces: Bruch . Beware and spell . Onlookers. Heaven on earth . 192 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1999 (1st edition), ISBN 3-351-02891-1