Leonce und Lena

Boredom: Leonce has gone down with it as if were an illness. The personage of the Prince, like his beloved Rosetta, naturally finds it most tedious to have to take over the government of the Popo Empire and therefore have to marry Princess Lena (whom he’s never met) of the Pipi Empire.  Weighed down by the heavy duty of idleness, and firmly intent never to become a useful member of society, the Prince has no desire to burden himself with a regular marriage. Together with Valerio, a master of philosophically reasoned idleness, he took flight. Princess Lena also fled the forced marriage. However, the two escapees meet and behind their mutual melancholy, ­­recognise in the other a kindred soul.

In the Court of Popo, King Peter, weary of his duties, is becoming more and more confused and instead of marrying Leonce and Lena, he marries two machines »in effigy» as a sham. However, hiding behind the two machines are Leonce and Lena who, both without knowing the identity of the other (one unwillingly and the other inclining accordingly) become a married couple.

The 20 year-old Georg Büchner wrote his comedy in 1836 for a competition run by Cotta publishers, hoping to improve his finances by winning the prize money of 300 guilders. But he handed in his manuscript too late and his work was returned to him unopened. Büchner revised his manuscript but did not attend the opening. The première was in 1895 in Munich. Since then, for generations, both for producers and theatre-goers, »Leonce and Lena» has been considered to be as much a fairy tale as a parable of a wealthy society; comic certainly, but also sarcastic to the point of cynicism and yet always contemporary.

(Translated from the German by Mike Mackenzie-Smith)

Duration: approx. 1 hour 15 mins / no intermission