Scene Study: Human/Snap-Mouth

“ONE OFTEN HAS SUCH A LONGING WITHIN ONE—BUT THEN ONE RETURNS WITH BROKEN WINGS, AND LIFE GOES ON AS IF ONE HAD NEVER BEEN THERE.”

In the play Kasimir and Karoline by Ödön von Horvath, the audience follows several characters on their journey through the Oktoberfest. In the hustle and bustle of the boisterous beer festival, class barriers seem to dissolve—at least for the duration of a beer-induced high. But perhaps they only become all the more apparent there.

Who, after all, pays for the ecstasy—and who pays for the social order? And how do these social conditions actually affect human relationships? The wealthy experience the festival as “refined. Very refined”—for Commercial Councilor Rauch, “the servant still sits next to the Privy Councilor, the merchant next to the tradesman, the minister next to the worker”—thus he praises democracy. “Despite the crisis and politics”—the Oktoberfest, no one can take that away from him. Whether and how the proletarian rank and file can also afford this privileged view of things, you’ll see in Kasimir and Karoline.