About the work
The Conflagration is a four-act tragicomedy and the sequel to Hauptmann's The Beaver Coat. He wrote it between summer 1900 and autumn 1901; it premiered on 27 November 1901 at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, directed by Emil Lessing, with Max Reinhardt as the shoemaker Fielitz and Albert Bassermann as the blacksmith Langheinrich.
Plot
Mother Wolff from The Beaver Coat, now remarried as Mrs Fielitz, becomes entangled with her husband in insurance fraud: a harmless game with flammable material turns into a real fire meant to fund the rebuilding of their house. The mentally disabled Alfred is wrongly suspected of the arson; Mrs Fielitz dies at the end.
Cultural significance
The premiere was not a success with audiences. Conceived as a tragicomedy, the play continues the social critique of official arbitrariness begun in The Beaver Coat and was adapted, together with that earlier play, by Bertolt Brecht in the 1950s.