This classic play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing deals with gender roles: What expectations are directed at the "stronger sex" and "male providers"? How and why does a woman have to fight to be allowed to love freely and determine her life independently?
Minna von Barnhelm – Auf dem Bild: Natali Seelig, Max Simonischek, Seyneb Saleh, Lorena Handschin
© Arno Declair
Major von Tellheim has retreated to an inn. Dishonourably discharged
from the army, wounded and facing allegations of corruption, he sinks,
penniless, into a torpor. But his young landlady is also in urgent need
of money. She relocates him to an inferior room so she can offer better
quarters to the wealthy Minna von Barnhelm and her trusted maid
Franziska. Thus Minna unexpectedly finds her long-lost fiancé Tellheim –
but a happy ending for the couple remains a distant prospect.
Everything has been changed by the war. They begin to grapple with how
to base their relationship on equality, which would mean Tellheim
having the same financial and honorary status as Minna. She, on the
other hand, only measures things in terms of love.
The
assignment of gender roles was a relevant issue during Lessing’s time
too: What expectations are directed at the "stronger sex" and "male
providers"? How and why does a woman have to fight to be allowed to
love freely and determine her life independently? Love is shown here as
an anarchic and comic state that can undermine even the soberest, most
rational person, and mercilessly expose self-doubt and images projected
onto us by others. Minna von Barnhelm shows a war-torn world
obsessed with money that questions itself and its social panorama. Who
fights? Who cleans up? Who is left? Who pays? Those who love, love.
Play with English surtitles.
Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes, no intermission.
Artists/Collaborators: Deutsches Theater Berlin
Runtime: Mon, 06/05/2024 to Fri, 10/05/2024