The Underpants

Underpants, The (Die Hose)

    Alternative Title: A Pair of Drawers; The Bloomers Author: Carl Sternheim

    First Performance: 1911, Berlin

    Published: 1911

    First English Translation: 1927

    Genre: Com. in 4 acts; German prose

    Setting: The Maskes' living room, Berlin, c.1910

    Cast: 4m, 2f

Theobald Maske, a petty civil servant, is outraged because his wife Luise accidentally dropped her bloomers while watching the Kaiser's procession. The mishap attracts lodgers to their house: Scarron the poet, who idealizes his lust for Luise, and Mandelstam the barber, who is more forthright in declaring his desire. At first Luise is won over by Scarron's wooing, but he disappoints her by rushing off to write a poem about it. By contrast, Mandelstam kisses her impulsively,...

[The entire page is 349 words long]

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