Minna von Barnhelm, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

This is an excerpt from the full-length DVD available through Amazon.com and on FreshwaterSeas.com. This play is another treasure well-known in Germany and unknown in the United States. Since it was first performed in the mid-18th century, Minna has been a German ideal of what a woman should be: beautiful, determined, clever, loving and proud, ready to take on the world for her lover and ready to give him his marching orders any time he needs it. It is the time just after the Seven Year's War; Minna, from the Austrian side of that war, is in love with Major von Tellheim, from the Prussian side. He is a man sadly beset by the requirements of honor, desperately convinced that it requires him to give up his Minna. She has no patience with the inhumanity of Prussian honor and determines to teach her man a lesson. As so often happens to those to try that manuever, she winds up learning a lesson herself. Around this couple there is a pleasant and varied group of characters through which Lessing gives us a classic portrait of the interplay of Central European personalities at a transitional time in modern history. This text is strictly a translation. I have followed Lessing's language speech for speech, remaining true to his thoughts and ideas while gently toning down his style. It is not hard to see past Lessing's style to his successful portrayals of people of deep feeling; I have tried to capture the feeling and texture of the German while moderating his tendency to be a bit inflated for the modern ear. The play is long by modern standards; Lessing's audience liked a play that gave them a good, solid three hours in the theater, but we don't, so I have provided two versions: a full text for the directors who want to do their own cutting and an acting edition that clearly marks where suitable cuts can be made. The playing time of the cut version is about 150 minutes including two intermissions. In both versions, I have taken the liberty of slightly changing the text in two scenes so as to eliminate unnecessary walk-on characters. The play includes nine named roles; six men and three women. All are good roles. Minna and Tellheim are the leads; Tellheim's servant Just, his sergeant Paul Werner, the Innkeeper, Minna's uncle Count von Bruchsall, and Riccaut de la Marliniere, a dissolute French officer, fill out the men. Minna's maid Franziska and Frau Marloff, the widow of one of Tellheim's officers, are the remaining women. Bruchsall and Riccaut can be doubled. The play can be done in three locales--Minna's rooms at the inn, the public room of the inn, and the street outside the inn. A fair amount of props and furniture are required.