Der Geizige

Rich Harpagon is obsessed with greed. Against all economic sense, he does not put his money into circulation, but hoards it at home - after all, only money promises security, especially in uncertain times! And because Harpagon senses the worst kind of waste in his private life, he wants to set his daughter Elise up with the rich widower Anselme so that she is no longer on his pocket. For himself, he is counting on a relationship with the poor and therefore certainly frugal Mariane, unaware that she loves his son Cléante.

Nothing and nobody can stop the miser: he would rather devour his money than part with it. But his children, barely grown up, want their share of their father's cake. Together with the other disenfranchised and insulted members of his household, they spin an intrigue. When a casket and its precious contents disappear, madness and anarchy finally reign and Molière's subversive comedy can unfold unhindered...

After "Cyrano de Bergerac", theater and film director Leander Haußmann most recently staged Kleist's "Amphitryon" at the Thalia Theater. Now, with Molière's "The Miser", he is bringing a play to the stage that was already topical at the time of its premiere in Paris in 1668, when those large banking houses had just been founded in England, New York and elsewhere, whose share packages are always in free fall.

Duration: 2:45h, no intermission

Premiere September 12, 2020, Thalia Theater