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September 25

German parody

I came across a recording here of Max Ehrlich delivering a parody of Alexander Moissi, who I came across during one of my earliest collaborations on WP, Busoni's Turandot Suite: but what is he saying? The info says "Textvorlagen: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805)", with a link to DNB which also mentions Albert Bassermann and Max Pallenberg, but these might be red herrings. Any ideas? MinorProphet (talk) 02:16, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After an introduction he starts with a famous monologue from Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (act 4, scene 3). As far as I can tell the text is original, but the delivery is very exaggerated. I don't have time right now to listen to the rest, maybe tonight. --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:27, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The declamation of the monologue ends at 1:15. What follows is a dialogue between Alexander Moissi and Guido Tielscher, who appear very clueless about Schiller's play. For instance, they understand the "Hohle Gasse" (a sunken lane) to be an underground railway, and they respond to Küssnacht, which could be literally translated as "kiss night", by "I'd rather kiss by day". Goethe appears in part 2 (Der König in Thule), and that is indeed a parody of Bassermann and Pallenberg. --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:46, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Wrongfilter: Thanks very much indeed for your knowledgeable insights. Just looking at de:Guido Thielscher's photo makes me laugh, he was obviously possessed of a wicked sense of humour. Thanks also for the link to part 2. Goethe used his "König in Thule" poem in Faust, Part 1. It appears that both Bassermann[1] and Pallenberg[2] appeared as Mephisto in productions of Faust by Max Reinhardt. I recognised Pallenberg's name from Reinhardt's massive 1911 pantomine-spectacle The Miracle (play) (article badly needs updating), but not in the film of the play The Miracle (1912 film) (another of my early collaborations), the world's first full-colour feature film. MinorProphet (talk) 12:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]