''The Broken Jug'' (german: Der zerbrochne Krug, link=no, , also sometimes translated ''The Broken Pitcher'') is a
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
written by the German playwright
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays '' Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', ''The Broken Jug'', ''Amph ...
. Kleist first conceived the idea for the play in 1801, upon looking at a copper engraving in
Heinrich Zschokke
Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke (22 March 177127 June 1848) was a German, later Swiss, author and reformer. Most of his life was spent, and most of his reputation earned, in Switzerland. He had an extensive civil service career, and wrote hist ...
's house entitled "Le juge, ou la cruche cassée". In 1803, challenged over his ability to write comedy, Kleist dictated the first three scenes of the play, though it was not completed until
1806.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...
first staged the play in
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
, where it premiered on 2 March
1808
Events January–March
* January 1
** The importation of slaves into the United States is banned, as the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves takes effect; African slaves continue to be imported into Cuba, and until the island ab ...
.
''The Broken Jug'' follows the story of a judge who presides over a trial where he has to settle who had broken a jug in the room of a young woman late one night, while himself acting highly suspicious before and throughout the whole trial.
Characters
*Adam – the judge.
*Eve – a country girl.
*Licht – the judge's secretary.
*Walter – the man who comes to inspect Adam and the way he runs his court.
*Frau Marthe – Eve's mother.
*Ruprecht – a young man who is in love with Eve.
Plot
Adam, the judge of the small town of Huisum in the Netherlands, is found dressing a wound on his leg by his secretary Licht, when Licht enters Adam's home in the morning. Licht also notices a large gash on Adam's face. Adam tells Licht that he received these wounds when he fell down after getting out of bed this morning and hit his head on the fireplace. Licht also comments on Adam's
clubfoot
Clubfoot is a birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inward and downward. Congenital clubfoot is the most common congenital malformation of the foot with an incidence of 1 per 1000 births. In approximately 50% of cases, clubfoot aff ...
.
Licht informs Adam that Walter, a government inspector who travels through the country to inspect the finances and the proceedings of the town courts, will arrive this day to take a look at Adam's court. Licht also tells Adam that a judge in a neighboring town has tried to commit suicide after Walter found problems at the court. Additionally, today is court day, and no one can find Adam's
wig
A wig is a head or hair accessory made from human hair, animal hair, or synthetic fiber. The word wig is short for periwig, which makes its earliest known appearance in the English language in William Shakespeare's ''The Two Gentlemen of Verona' ...
, with Adam's maidservant insisting that Adam arrived home without the wig late last evening.
When Walter arrives, he insists that Adam immediately start the day's trial. The parties are the plaintiff Marthe, a widowed farmer who is there with her daughter Eve and the defendant, Ruprecht, Eve's fiancé together with his father, Veit. Before the trial Eve tries to speak to Ruprecht, who rejects her and calls her a harlot. Adam also speaks to the parties before the trial, especially Eve, seemingly trying to influence her testimony. Walter admonishes Adam and requests him to start the official trial immediately.
When the trial starts, an enraged Marthe accuses Ruprecht of having destroyed a water jug which was intricately painted and had rich family history and because of that had a large emotional value to her. Other people suggest that her disappointment of Ruprecht's treatment of Eve may also have something to do with her anger. Marthe claims that she found Ruprecht in Eve's room last night with the door broken down and the jug broken. She also claims that Eve had accused Ruprecht of breaking the jug.
When it is Ruprecht's turn to testify, he explains that he secretly went to Eve's home and heard her talk with somebody in her room. He mentions that he suspected it to be a man called Lebrecht, who had previously shown interest in Eve. When Adam hears that Lebrecht is suspected, he eagerly requests that information to be noted in the protocol. Ruprecht says that he broke down the door, entered the room and saw someone flee through the window. He was able to hit the fleeing man twice over the head with a broken off door handle but could not identify the person. He also admits that he is not absolutely sure if it was him or the fleeing man who broke the jug in the chaos.
When it is Eve's turn, Adam again talks to her, seemingly trying to influence her testimony. Walter again admonishes him. Eve testifies that it was not Ruprecht who broke the jug but that she will not name the actual guilty person.
During a pause in the proceedings, Adam tries to get Walter drunk. Then, Brigitte, a lodger in Marthe's house arrives with Licht and a wig in her hand. She states that she found the wig last night in Marthe's garden and that she and Licht found a club-footed trail in the fresh snow and both followed that trail to Adam's house.
Walter asks Adam to come clean but Adam refuses and instead hands down his ruling: Ruprecht is convicted and shall go to jail for his insubordination against the court. Eve now exclaims that it was Adam who was in her room last night and who broke the jug while fleeing. An enraged Ruprecht attacks Adam, who flees the court room unharmed. Walter ensures Ruprecht that his conviction will be overturned, Ruprecht and Eve reconcile and their parents approve of their wedding.
Adaptations
In 1937 a German
film of the same title was released with
Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings (born Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, 23 July 1884 – 2 January 1950) was a Swiss born German actor, popular in the 1920s in Hollywood. He was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actor for his roles in '' The La ...
in the lead. It is also a 1941 opera by
Viktor Ullmann
Viktor Ullmann (1 January 1898, in Teschen – 18 October 1944, in KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau) was a Silesia-born Austrian composer, conductor and pianist.
Biography
Viktor Ullmann was born on 1 January 1898 in Těšín (Teschen), which belonged ...
. In 1944 it was produced as a film in Mexico by German director
Alfredo B. Crevenna
Alfredo B. Crevenna (22 April 1914 – 30 August 1996) was a Mexican film director and screenwriter. He directed more than 150 films between 1945 and 1995.
Selected filmography
* '' Neither Blood Nor Sand'' (1941, screenwriter only)
* '' ...
under the title ''Adan, Eva y el diablo''.
In 1958, the
Stratford Festival produced an adaptation by
Donald Harron
Donald Hugh Harron, (September 19, 1924 – January 17, 2015) was a Canadian comedian, actor, director, journalist, author, playwright, and composer. Harron is best remembered by American audiences as a member of the cast of the long-running co ...
and directed by
Michael Langham
Michael Seymour Langham (22 August 1919 – 15 January 2011) was an English director and actor, who spent much of his career living and working in Canada and the United States.
He was educated at Radley College and studied law at the Universi ...
which toured in Canada and to the
Phoenix Theatre in
New York.
The Irish author,
John Banville
William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry ...
, adapted the play, setting it in a famine-stricken Irish village. It had its first production in Dublin in 1994. In
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, Studiklub Teater Bandung (STB) produced adaption by Suyatna Anirun with Indonesian title "Jambangan yang Pecah" in 1982.
References
Sources
* Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
* Helbling, Robert. 1975. ''The Major Works of Heinrich von Kleist''. New York: New Directions. .
* Lamport, Francis John. 1990. ''German Classical Drama: Theatre, Humanity and Nation, 1750–1870''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
See also
*
List of German plays
This is a list of German plays:
A
* ' (1807), by Heinrich von Kleist
* ''Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui'' (1941) by Bertolt Brecht
* '' Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny'' (1927–1930), by Bertolt Brecht
B
* ''Baal'' (1918/1923), ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broken Jug, The
1808 plays
Plays by Heinrich von Kleist
Plays set in the Netherlands
German plays adapted into films