Rehearsals of the Deutscher Verein play have been held nearly every night for the past two weeks, and while much remains to be done everything points to an even more finished production than last year's.
The play this year, "Pension Scholler," is perhaps the most farcical which the Verein has yet presented. The plot makes up in its rollicking humor any deficiencies in the way of probability, and is a veiled satire on the foibles and follies of modern life.
Klapproth, an exuberant provincial, during a visit to Berlin desires to enjoy an adventure which in the telling will outclass the experiences of a rival sight-seer in his native town. He hits upon the idea of visiting a sanitarium for persons mentally unbalanced and promises to start a nephew of his in business if he will arrange for such an adventure. The nephew resolves upon the rash expedient of taking his uncle to the Pension Scholler, a private and eminently sane boarding house.
As the boarders, however, all have pronounced hobbies. Klapproth, with the preconceived notion that he is visiting a sanitarium, naturally enough believes the residents in the pension to be mildly insane. There follow a series of uproariously funuy scenes between Klapproth and the "patients" Josephine Kruger, who is continually searching for material for a new novel: Fritz Bernhardy, an inveterate traveller: Eugen Rumpel, a young man with dramatic aspirations and a defect in his speech: Grober, an irascible old soldier: and Amalic Pfeiffer, who is constantly searching for a husband for her daughter.
Finally Klapproth returns home glad to escape from the eccentricities of the Pension Scholler. His consternation may be imagined when on the following day, the various "patients" on one pretext or another come to visit him. Of course he thinks they have escaped, manages to lock them up in different rooms, and telegraphs to Scholler, the owner of the pension for help. At last the misunderstandings are cleared up to the satisfaction and amusement of all concerned.
Two performances will be given, one on Friday, March 18, in Brattle Hall, and the other in Boston at Potter Hall on Saturday, March 19. Tickets for both performances may be obtained from O. R. Koechl, Russell 1. The price of tickets for the Cambridge performance will be $1, and for the Boston performance $1.50 and $1. Books of the play are on sale at C. A. Koehler & Co., 149 A Tremont street, Boston
Read more in News
The Crime