Farce by George Tabori
German by Ursula Grützmacher-Tabori
A young ambitious but untalented draughtsman from Braunau am Inn comes to Vienna to study art. The person in question is Adolf Hitler, and he is placed in a men's asylum.
There he meets Schlomo Herzl, who is working on a novel called "Mein Kampf" and first tries to teach him manners.
The fact that Herzl is Jewish and Hitler doesn't exactly keep quiet about his anti-Semitism doesn't stop the big-hearted bookseller from taking touching care of the newcomer.
Not only does he console him over his botched entrance exam to the art academy and tirelessly recommend a slightly less twisted worldview in conversations and stories - he cleans up after him, leaving him his coat on cold winter nights and eventually the title "Mein Kampf" for his crude political writings.
Herzl also coiffed his distinctive parting and the little beard later named after Hitler.
But all that loving care won't stop Frau Tod from coming for Hitler.
Not as a corpse, but as the best choking angel she ever had.
For some years now, even in Germany, people have been used to seeing Hitler treated humorously and comedically. But George Tabori's farce, which premiered back in 1987, is still unrivalled in its fantastically grotesque confluence of clever wit and melancholy profundity, comedy taken to extremes and the gruesome reality - even of what is to come after the end of the plot.
Text source and more event information: http://www.staatstheater-wiesbaden.de/programm/spielplan/mein-kampf-2016-2017/3836/
