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Tragedies of sex

Chapter 4: CHARACTERS
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About This Book

A quartet of plays dramatizes the collision between sexual instinct and repressive social orders, following young people and an alluring woman whose desires and consequences expose hypocrisy, exploitation, and destructive passions. The pieces shift between intimate realism and expressionist, episodic scenes, using frank sexual situations, satire, and grotesque imagery to critique bourgeois morality, legal and religious constraints, and the commodification of bodies. Tone alternates between tragic and sardonic, with recurring motifs of awakening, corruption, and moral collapse, and the structure privileges confrontational dialogue and stark stagecraft to provoke moral reflection rather than offer resolution.

CHARACTERS

Melchior Gabor
Moritz Stiefel
Hänschen Rilow
Ernest Roebel
Lämmermeier
Otto
George
Robert








Schoolboys,
aged 14 to 17
Diethelm
Reinhold
Ruprecht
Helmuth
Gaston




Boys in a House of Correction
Mr. Gabor, a Judge
Mrs. Fanny Gabor


Melchior’s Parents
Mr. Stiefel, Moritz’s Father
Mr. Ziegenmelker, his Friend
Mr. Probst, Moritz’s Uncle
Rev. Mr. Kahlbaugh, Pastor
Dr. Sonnenstich, Principal
Dr. Affenschmalz
Dr. Knochenbruch
Dr. Zungenschlag
Dr. Knüppeldick
Dr. Hungergurt
Dr. Fliegentod








The Faculty of the
Boys’ School

Habebald, the School Beadle
Dr. Prokrustes, Head of the House of Correction
A Locksmith
Dr. von Brausepulver, M.D.
The Muffled Gentleman
Mrs. Bergmann
Ina Müller, her married daughter
Wendla Bergmann, her 14-year-old daughter
Martha Bessel
Thea


Wendla’s Friends
Ilse, an older girl, an artist’s model

The Scene is laid in Southern Germany or in
Switzerland. The Time is from May
to November, 1892.