85. “Dead Time”

Drama in three acts by Ernst Hardt
Performance by the Freie Bühne, Berlin

The three-act drama by Ernst Hardt, which followed Hofmannsthal's "Scene", is a youth play with the worst faults of such a play: Dependence on role models, lack of a lively sense of observation, clumsiness in the structure of the plot. Ibsen, Hauptmann, Maeterlinck and many others can be heard speaking from Hardt's sentences. We are dealing with four lonely people. Estella lives next to her husband, a dead time for her soul, because he pursues his philosophical musings and lets her wither away. Another woman still lives in the house: she was once engaged to her husband and is now "married to both of them, so to speak". She endures living in the house because she sees that the woman who took her lover from her is not happy. She finds happiness in being a support to both husbands. Guided by her strong will, the life of the "lonely one" goes by. Then suddenly a fourth man arrives, Estella's former lover. He once abandoned her to his rival because he believed she would be happy with him. He sees himself deceived and believes he is entitled to clarify the relationship between the spouses. The man, the scales fall from his eyes, goes into the water.

The play reveals a serious artistic endeavor. But at no point are you swept away, the people and the conflicts are indifferent. They are not experienced; they are exquisite. Everything seems second-hand. The play was written by a poet who, for the time being, only knows life from books.