LISELOTTE VON DER PFALZ

(Liselotte of the Palatinate) byAnton ImpekovenandCarl Mathern.

Premiered 1919. The eponymous heroine of this pseudohistorical comedy, one of the most popular on German stages in the early 1920s, is the historical Elisabeth Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Palatinate in Heidelberg. Liselotte is married off to the Duke of Orleans, brother of the French king Louis XIV, and in Louis's court Liselotte is the embodiment of German honesty, forth-rightness, earthiness, and candor. She stands in stark contrast to the decadence of Versailles, mildly rebuking court ladies for their wan expressions and ennui. German girls are healthy, robust, and vivacious, she says, terms which also describe Liselotte herself. The play projects a historical atmosphere, and by the final act Liselotte is a matron, France has gone to war with Germany, and French armies have taken her childhood friends prisoner. King Louis agrees to release them if Liselotte will agree to a marriage between her son and his bastard daughter. The confrontation between Liselotte and the girl's mother (Louis's mistress) reveals Liselotte's wisdom in accepting that both young people must make the best of a regrettable situation they have inherited—a plea with contemporary analogies for common sense between France and Germany in the postwar period.