The Ascent of the Criminal in German Comedy

Abstract

Thomas Mann once noted that the German reading public values im Grunde nur das Seri6s-Gewichtige, nicht das Leichte.' If applied to theater audiences, this observation might explain, in part, the relative paucity of major comedies in German literature; it may also help account for the conspicuous presence of serious themes or implications in those comic dramas that have attained lasting popular and critical acclaim. Three such plays, which have left an indelible mark on the German stage, are Heinrich von Kleist's Der zerbrochene Krug (1808), Gerhart Hauptmann's Der Biberpelz (1893), and Carl Zuckmayer's Der Hauptmann von K-penick (1931). Although created by playwrights of different epochs and largely divergent artistic temperaments, these three comedies are linked by a very striking bond. Each involves a collapse of justice and features a lawbreaker as the chief character and a breach of the law as the dramatic dynamo which generates all action and conflict. While the object of the crime2 supplies the title for the first two compositions, it is the criminal who is named in the title of the third.3