The Rats

Former theatre manager Harro Hassenreuter has set up a props room in his attic and gives private acting lessons there. A fatal deal is also struck in this attic: Pregnant servant girl Pauline Pipercarcka agrees to sell her unwanted child to Mrs. John, whose newborn baby has died. Mrs. John then plans to pass the child off as her own. When Pauline regrets her decision and wants the baby back, Mrs. John panics. She swaps the baby for her neighbour’s deathly-ill child and gets her criminal brother Bruno to frighten Pauline. Bruno kills Pauline and the distraught Mrs. John commits suicide.

Gerhart Hauptmann called The Rats a “Berlin tragic-comedy” in which he interweaves Mrs. John’s story with burlesque scenes about the Hassenreuter family. Following Lonely Lives and Rose Bernd, Michael Thalheimer – the Deutsches Theater’s Head Director – stages his third Gerhart Hauptmann play.

The production received an invitation to stage the play at Berlin’s “Theatertreffen” 2008 – an annual festival that presents the year’s best productions in German-language theatre.