About the work
“Glaube Liebe Hoffnung. Ein kleiner Totentanz in fünf Bildern” (Faith, Love, Hope: A Little Dance of Death in Five Scenes) is a play by Ödön von Horváth, written between 1931 and early 1933. It was prompted by the Munich court reporter Lukas Kristl, who told Horváth about a case from his work in February 1932; Horváth acknowledges their collaboration in a preface to the play. A production announced by Heinz Hilpert in Berlin in 1933 did not go ahead under Nazi rule. The play premiered on 13 November 1936 at the Theater für 49 in Vienna under the title “Liebe, Pflicht und Hoffnung” (directed by Ernst Jubal).
Plot
During the economic crisis, the young Elisabeth is desperate for work and money and even tries to sell her future corpse to an anatomical institute. A preparator lends her money, but she needs it to pay a fine for working without a trade licence, and she ends up in prison. Afterwards she falls in love with a police officer; when her criminal record comes to light, he has to choose between her and his career and drops her. Penniless and alone, Elisabeth throws herself into the water and dies even though she is pulled out.
Cultural significance
Using an everyday individual case, Horváth shows how seemingly minor offences and the paragraphs of courts and authorities can destroy a life, and in his preface he describes the struggle between individual and society as the basic theme of his plays. The play grew out of the same preliminary drafts as “Kasimir und Karoline” and was adapted for television several times (1958, 1969, 1980).