About the work
Der grüne Kakadu (The Green Cockatoo) is a one-act grotesque that Arthur Schnitzler wrote in 1898; he premiered it at Vienna's Burgtheater on 1 March 1899, together with the one-act plays Paracelsus and Die Gefährtin.
Plot
In a Paris tavern called The Green Cockatoo, former theatre director Prospère has out-of-work actors play criminals and rebels for a paying aristocratic audience, offering them the thrill of danger on the eve of the storming of the Bastille. When the real revolution breaks out outside, the guests can no longer tell performance from reality.
Cultural significance
According to Schnitzler's diary, the premiere fell short of expectations, while Die Gefährtin, staged the same evening, drew the strongest applause. The play is still regarded as one of German-language Modernism's sharpest treatments of the line between performance and reality.