Kasimir und Karoline

“And love never dies,” is the motto of Horváth’s story set at Munich’s October Fest in the early 1930s. But the love between Kasimir, who has just lost his job as a chauffeur, and Karoline, a woman driven by her desire to rise up in society, already dies in the third of 117 scenes. And yet, the line about love that never dies, which at first sounds simply malicious, is somehow repeatedly proven true throughout the play. The fact that love is mainly regarded and utilised as a vehicle for social advancement and decline just makes it somehow lasting longer. But not more enduring. After all, every new opportunity to get carried into an even better life must be grabbed. And there is no time to look back: “What is dead, is dead. And there are no ghosts, especially between the sexes.” Karoline – who, after leaving the disgraced chauffeur, climbs the social ladder to be with a councillor of commerce for a short while, before she finally ends up with the patternmaker in the children‘ s section in a department store – uses cunning to try and achieve goals she cannot attain with emotion: “People without feelings live easier.” Horváth’s characters are going to need the iciness they exhibit in this 1932 play.