The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Programme 2021)

A Comedy by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in a version by Stefan Ebeling

Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher were, alongside Shakespeare, enormously successful playwrights during the Elizabethan era. They wrote most of their plays together including the ludicrous comedy “The Knight of the Burning Pestle”. A theatre company wants to stage a play titled “The Daughter of the Speculator” but the prologue is interrupted by a couple from the audience– a spice wholesaler and his wife, patrons of the theatre– who protest: They want to see another play, ideally one with a spice wholesaler as its hero. On the spur of the moment, they sent their daughter Raffaela, nicknamed Raffy, onto the stage. She should play the knight and perform great deeds for the glory of the industry. Her mark shall be a spice merchant’s tool: the pestle. In parallel with the actors’ rehearsed play, Raffy develops a hilarious plot about the knight in dead earnestness, while the theatre company nevertheless tries to keep the upper hand.

Direction: Stefan Ebeling
Dramaturgy: Willi Händler
Production: Theater Poetenpack
Costume Design: Janet Kirsten
Stage Design: Christian Hoffmann
Composition: Doro Gehr
With: André Kudella, Gislén Engelmann, Antonia Döring, Reiner Gabriel, Andrea Seitz, Georg Peetz, Markus Braun, Clara Schoeller, Hendrikje van de Ven, Doro Gehr

Duration: 2 hours 20 minutes including intermission