47. The Oskar Blumenthal Evening

Performance at the Königliches Schauspielhaus, Berlin

The Oskar Blumenthal Evening at the Königliches Schauspielhaus presented a new one-act play and an older, reworked three-act play with undisputed success. The new one-act play - the verse play "Abu-Seid" - is the old parable of the rich miser for whom his earthly goods are of no use in the hereafter if his actions on earth were devoid of all good. In ten minutes, the great poet Abu-Seid uses this parable to turn the matted heart of the rich carpet dealer Ibrahim so that he agrees to marry his daughter to Jussuf, a poor slob of a poet. The little play is partly written in finely pointed, thoughtful verse, partly in Wilhelm Busch rhymes, in places even skillfully and effectively "ghosted into poetry". The excellent performance glided over the Buschiads with fine discretion. Mr. Klein was brilliant as the vagabond old poet Abu-Seid in the one-act play and as the feudal jovial Count Mengers with the young daughter, the young heart and the old debts in the comedy "The Second Face".