4 - Violence and Silence in Domestic Tragedy: Kabale und Liebe

Summary

KABALE UND LIEBE (INTRIGUE AND LOVE) was performed to a Frankfurt audience then to one in Mannheim in the spring of 1784. Schiller had assisted at rehearsals for the Mannheim production, which was met with acclaim. But the play was also the target of severe criticism, notably from Karl Philipp Moritz, who attacked, among other things, Schiller's language. It was taken off the stage at Mannheim and censored in Stuttgart and Vienna. Nevertheless, it soon established itself firmly in the repertoire, becoming relatively popular in the later half of the nineteenth century and even more so in the twentieth. In the postwar period it has been one of the most frequently performed plays on the German stage. In addition to countless stage productions there have been four film versions and several for television. Some enthusiastic contemporary reviews again compared Schiller to Shakespeare, and although such comparisons were drawing attention to Schiller in a positive way, they also hindered rather than advanced an adequate appreciation of Schiller's language and stagecraft. Whereas Schiller said that Die Räuber was a dramatic novel and that he was unhappy with the ending of Fiesko, with Kabale und Liebe he had the model of the “bürgerliches Trauerspiel” (domestic tragedy) before him. Schiller was attempting to emulate this serious literary genre and to achieve greater theatrical impact than possible with the popular forms of drama of his day.