Congratulations to the students who staged Iffland’s play “Der Komet”

Congratulations to the students of GER340H German Theatre Production who staged Iffland’s play “Der Komet” from March 25-27. Around 200 people attended the three performances.

German theatre has a long tradition at the German Department. After Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Die Physiker (2010), Erol Boran’s Drakul(j)a (2012), Günter Grass’ Hochwasser (2015), Erol Boran’s Deutsch vom Fass and Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck (both 2016), this time we staged August Wilhelm Iffland’s Der Komet. Iffland was a contemporary of Goethe and Schiller, and highly regarded by both of them. On the surface, his play is about a cosmic threat, a comet that appears to be approaching the earth (Iffland was born in 1759, the very year Halley’s Comet made its first mathematically predicted appearances, causing quite a bit of Endzeitstimmung.) But deeper down the play is a farce about charlatans and human folly – and these are topics just as relevant today as they were over 200 years ago when the play was first staged. We staged it with vague allusions to contemporary politics. We are Theater DU (das Deutsche Theater Toronto), and all participants are German students of GER340H “German Theatre Production.”