E.T.A. Hoffmann is a typical representative of the "Black Romanticism". Born as a counter-movement to the Enlightenment and also out of disappointment at its failure in social and political life, it sees man threatened by dark forces that can determine his fate and destroy him. At the same time, however, it plays with satirical elements and caricatures belief in progress and perfectionism. The story "The Sandman" belongs to his cycle of night plays and takes up the tradition of the horror tale.
Nathanael, a student of physics but a poet at heart and in his self-image, suffered trauma as a child from the telling of an old nurse's tale in which the Sandman pecks out the eyes of naughty human children and gives them to the owl children to eat. This Sandman takes shape for him in the old and cranky advocate Coppelius, who conducts alchemical experiments with Nathanael's father at night. The father is killed in the process.
After long years, the memory of these childhood terrors breaks through again when the student receives a visit from the weather-glass merchant Coppola, in whom he believes he recognizes a revenant of Coppelius.
Clara, the sensible and down-to-earth fiancée tries to convince Nathaniel that the evil he believes he is possessed by can only gain power over him if he allows it.
Through a perspective lens purchased by Coppola, Nathanael finally catches sight of Olimpia, the beautiful daughter of his professor Spalanzani, and falls under her spell. There seems to be a mystery about her. Finally, her father presents her to the public at a ball. Nathaniel has lost his heart to the beautiful Olimpia and becomes delirious when he realizes that she is only an "Automat", an elaborately crafted wooden doll.
After being released from the madhouse for six months, he seems to have recovered through Clara's care, wants to marry her and move to the country with her family. On a final walk through the city, the two climb the town hall tower, Nathaniel regains perspective and is again seized by madness as he looks through it. In a frenzy he tries to push Clara off the tower and finally falls to his death himself.
This production tries to spin the material further into our present time without, however, changing Hoffmann's text. It takes up elements of horror and fantasy, cites contemporary expressions of "evil" and poses the question of what our relationship is to today's "automata" by which we are surrounded and which we use thoughtlessly.
Text source and more information about this event: http://www.katakombe-frankfurt.de/Der-Sandmann.64.0.html?&no_cache=1&st=5
