Die Prinzipalin

The theatre needs reform, believes Caroline Neuber, who travels around the villages with her troupe in the 18th century and longs for a permanent home, a municipal theatre. There must be something more than cheap and vulgar entertainment in the market square or harmless, pleasant amusement at court: a place where artistic ambition and amusement come together and where society gathers to question the prevailing conditions instead of merely reinforcing them. With great determination and against even greater resistance, the famous «Neuberin» sets about implementing her revolutionary plan, which has lost none of its validity and impact to this day.

Die Prinzipalin is a tour de force through theatre history that also pulls out all the aesthetic stops: rhyming passages in the style of the commedia dell'arte transition seamlessly into Brechtian anti-illusionism or the «natural play» of modern dialogue – a historical spectacle that strikes at the heart of our present and is also wildly entertaining.