DAS KÄTHCHEN VON HEILBRONN

THE KÄTHCHEN OF HEILBRONN
by Heinrich von Kleist in a version by Elsa-Sophie Jach with texts from "Kein Ort. Nowhere" by Christa Wolf

"Allowed! I am the happiest of men!"

No other play by Heinrich von Kleist is the subject of so many superlatives as his "Käthchen von Heilbronn." It is not only the most successful, but also the most romantic, fairy-tale-like and at the same time most enigmatic that he wrote. And indeed, Kleist offers everything the theater had to offer in 1807: a mysterious court of females, knight fights, a burning castle, a cherub, as well as devious intrigues, a poison attack, and a plethora of mixed-up letters. Kleist's world, it seems, is in turmoil. Only Käthchen, the daughter of a Heilbronn armorer, is not deterred by anything. Determined, she follows the path that was revealed to her in a dream. She follows in the footsteps of Count Wetter vom Strahl, who was prophesied to be her great love in the dream. But precisely because the world around Käthchen seems so chaotic and fairy-tale-like, her perseverance and conviction seem all the more authentic.

For Elsa-Sophie Jach, house director at the Residenztheater, Käthchen is the alter ego of her creator. Kleist, too, felt misunderstood and was considered by many to be an oddball who, despite some disappointments, firmly believed in his path as an author. Like him, his Käthchen is a fighter of words and poetry. And she is his ally in his search for a counterpart worth living with.

"Kleist's characters dance through between the words and yet cannot speak. They talk for their lives, stutter, lurch, breathe heavily, break off and remain silent. Again and again they faint. The break in the language becomes the actual content of what is said, the occurrence of the gaps a second notation, Kleist's own struggle for audibility in a bourgeois society in which he feels completely misunderstood the starting point of his writing." Elsa-Sophie Jach

Artistic Director

Production Elsa-Sophie Jach
Stage Marlene Lockemann
Costumes Johanna Stenzel
Music Samuel Wootton
Video Jonas Alsleben
Lighting Barbara Westernach
Dramaturgy Michael Billenkamp