Because the 2012 musical is just the tip of the iceberg.
To get some dates in: “Katte – Ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen“ was published in Leipzig in 1914 and premiered on stage in Dresden on November 6th of the same year. The author, Hermann Burte, was a raging Nazi and this play is apparently one of his less bad works. It is, supposedly, a tragedy and it is obvious that Burte has read some primary sources, like Wilhelmine’s memoirs and Katte’s farewell letters, both of which he quotes verbatim at times. He just decides to ignore some parts.
Act 1 (of five)
We begin our journey in the city palace of Berlin with Crown Prince Friedrich and Princess Wilhelmine playing the flute and lute respectively. Fräulein von Sonsfeld is “in the background”, doing God knows what.
Enter: Our Hero.
Katte informs the siblings and the audience about the newest developments in the English marriage endeavour and is not above using long pauses for dramatic effect:
Katte: “Sir Hotham is…” Fritz: (after a long, dramatic pause) “…Yes?” Katte: “Leaving…” Wilhelmine & Fritz: “Leaving!” Katte: “Because England wanted Grumbkow fired…” Fritz: “Fired!” Katte: “Because he is, allegedly, on the Austrian payroll…” Wilhelmine: “He is.” Katte: “And they have found letters....” Fritz: “Letters?!” Katte: “In which he talks shit about the King.”
We’ve got a very eloquent Crown Prince, haven’t we? Katte tells the siblings that Grumbkow is still FW’s bff because Seckendorff – Grumbkow’s friend, their enemy (yes, he says that. Just in case Fritz and Wilhelmine forgot.) – has gotten his hands on the letters that Fritz wrote to England, so Grumbkow is fine and Fritz is in deep shit and should write to Hotham asap.
But who will deliver the letter? Katte will! And he’ll bring Hotham’s answer too, so Fritz grabs his hand for a moment and, presumably looking deep into his eyes in a very friendly manner, tells him that he would be nothing without his dear friend’s services, to which the dear friend replies that his services would be nothing without Fritz’s friendship. They use “Du” for each other btw. Not that that will be important for too long.
Fritz leaves, Katte, Wilhelmine and Fräulein von Sonsfeld lurking in the shadows remain.
Wilhelmine: “So, Katte, why are you acting as my brother’s mailman?” Katte: “Oh, you know, I’m just somewhat bored.” Wilhelmine: “Oh Katte, you’re so brave for not selling my brother out to our dad.“ Katte: “There are other responsibilities than those of a soldier’s oath. Different ones. I love your brother; that I am his friend is my greatest reason for happiness on this earth, the meaning of my existence even. In a very heterosexual way.” Wilhelmine: “If you weren’t here, he’d find someone else.” Katte: “Actually, I am pretty sure that I am the most fitting person in the entire Prussian army to be Fritz’s friend. I mean, look at me, I’m great. I’m musically inclined, I know languages, I have travelled, I was a law student, which is somehow relevant, and also the King trusts me like no other, for some reason.” Wilhelmine: “You’re pretty vain.” Katte: “No, no! I am also ugly as sin! Have I mentioned that I do not have a girlfriend? Also, for some reason, I get a line about being some kind of grand puppeteer who likes manipulating the people around him, isn’t that heroic.”
The only person Katte is not manipulating is FW, but FW likes him anyways and even had a chat with him asking “Why does my son not love me, Katte? Make him love me, Katte!” and Katte is now convinced that dear old dad is actually the sweetest person, deep deep inside. Wilhelmine has never considered that before.
Fritz returns with the finished letter, Katte leaves.
The Parents show up and have a fight about whether Wilhelmine should just become a nun and after that it’s time for some classic FW (the sweetest person, deep deep inside) yelling at his son, throwing musical instruments across the room and threatening violence. After he tells Fritz that he will accompany him on his travels, Katte returns and FW and he are overjoyed to see each other:
FW: “Katte!” Katte: “Your Majesty!” FW: “Your father is Good Prussian Noble Hans Heinrich von Katte and your grandfather on your mother’s side is Good Prussian Noble Alexander Hermann von Wartensleben?!” Katte: “Indeed!” FW: “Great! Be a Good Prussian Noble like them! Do you know what that means?” Katte: “Predestination sucks?” FW: “Exactly! Also your collar is a centimetre too high, fix that.”
Fritz is told that he will be taking “the younger Keith” as a page for the duration of the journey south and is kind of bummed out that Katte will not be his page, for some reason.
The Parents leave, the other three remain.
Katte, ever FW’s biggest fan, remarks that his Majesty was very merciful and gets himself an earful of Hohenzollern-sarcasm with Wilhelmine saying that the King just wanted to lock her up in a convent for life a little bit and Fritz marvelling at the fact that his face is still intact and his hair was not ripped out, a merciful King indeed.
We have now reached talk of escaping. Wilhelmine is not into it and asks Katte to please say something wise.
Katte: “There are three ways to fix this.” Fritz: “Running, leaving and getting away?” Katte: “No. Wilhelmine marrying the Duke of Weißenfels…” Wilhelmine: “Fuck you AND the Duke of Weißenfels!” Katte: “We could also sacrifice your mom, since this is all totally just her fault…” Fritz: “True, but no, so let’s run.” Katte: “Alright, but please don’t leave before you reach Wesel, it won’t be safe.” Fritz: “How about no? You won’t order me around, I’m leaving whenever I want to leave.” Katte: “Then I’m not going.” prinzsorgenfrei: Herr Müller-Lüdenscheidt! Wilhelmine: “Listen to the nice man, Fritz, wait until Wesel.” Fritz: “I won’t promise you shit, actually?? Do you want to imprison me like my father is doing already??” Katte & Wilhelmine: “We literally just want you to not die.” Fritz: “Well, I won’t promise you shit! See you around!”
And he leaves. This is the last thing we’ll see of him until the execution scene, so I hope you didn’t get too used to his presence. Wilhelmine tells Katte to run after him and work his magic as a master puppeteer, Katte says “Keith is an unreliable Scotsman, so if Fritz leaves before Wesel he’s absolutely fucked and so are we. See you around, your Highness!” and runs after Fritz.
Act 2
We are in Monbijou, where Frau von Kamecke and Fräulein von Sonsfeld are talking about possible ghost sightings during the last few days, especially a commotion that happened in the evening of the 11th of August. Fr. von Kamecke is convinced that shit is about to go down, Frl. von Sonsfeld is not.
Kamecke: “So, in any case, we’re all gonna die. Oh no, here comes your Princess – YES, a BEAUTIFUL celebration, NOTHING TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT! Oh shit, was that an owl outside!? Do you know what that means!?” Wilhelmine: “That owls scream when they see light.”
Fr. von Kamecke leaves, possibly frightened of either the owl or Wilhelmine’s “I ain’t afraid of no ghost” approach and Wilhelmine is left alone with Frl. von Sonsfeld whom she ends up kissing passionately because she is just so glad to be alive!
People are having fun at the celebration and Frl. von Sonsfeld attributes that to Katte being there and telling funny stories. He is, apparently, being spoiled rotten by the Queen’s affection. We later find out that SD is “telling FW about how great he is”-levels of into Katte. Because literally everyone in this play is super into Katte. Wilhelmine is the least into Katte and she’s supposedly in love with him.
The miniature portrait of totally just Wilhelmine that Fritz is definitely not a part of is mentioned and apparently SD took to the whole “I will not give this back, the Queen should calm down” thing way better here since not only is she not not talking to him anymore but, according to Frl. von Sonsfeld, Katte is “a favourite”.
Katte is also not done by simply saying “The Crown Prince allowed me to copy it, I made it, it’s mine”, no-o, this Katte apparently said that he “would rather die than give up Wilhelmine’s image”. Wilhelmine swoons a little at that and I believe I saw a glimpse of my own brain while rolling my eyes.
Frl. von Sonsfeld mentions that Katte seems a little distraught because he doesn’t listen to people and suddenly sucks at dancing, so Wilhelmine has her call him over.
Wilhelmine: “Oh no, he’s pale and distracted and telling funny stories! What does this mean? Oh, his fate truly seems to be written all over his face! I do not know how I should know his fate or why the author thought that including the thing about Katte “always looking somewhat grim as if he already knew his fate” was necessary since I wrote that line over a decade later when I, in fact, knew his fate, but whatever. Hey, Katte, why are you only funny when I am not around?” Katte: “Funny is a word that is hard to define, but apparently the rest of the court had a blast listening to me talking about figuring out my horse’s dietary restrictions after it almost died. I don’t get it either, maybe I’m just that charming.” Wilhelmine: “You’re looking a little worse for wear and there’s a twitch right where your eyebrows, that even this Katte-approving version of me can’t not comment on, are connected in the middle. What are you worried about?” Katte: “Alright, I will speak. You know my relationship with the Crown Prince.” Wilhelmine: “I will react to this statement with “a pained movement” that the author of this summary still does not know how to interpret in other ways than “don’t make me think about the fact that you’re screwing my brother”.” Katte: “First up, my collar is up to code today. Maybe it is a metaphor, who knows. Now let me tell you about how Fritz and your dad not getting along is tearing my heart apart because I love them both so much and I am still FW’s biggest fan and I honestly don’t get why Fritz has a problem with him. So anyway, I can’t give either of them my whole heart, I am so torn, I think I might die. Onto the actual happenings: I think Fritz has been captured.” Wilhelmine: “Okay then, leave Berlin asap.” Katte: "No, I can't leave, all of the King's wrath would come down onto the Crown Prince and you! So I intend to sacrifice myself to save my Prince. However! If you fled with me, I would go! Because fuck what happens to Fritz, I guess. Having feelings that are consistent for more than two lines is hard for me." Wilhelmine: “Do me a favour and run, I do not want your sacrifice.” Katte: “Am I not good enough?” D: Wilhelmine: “Listen, I just vaguely want you not to die and Fritz would say the same.” Katte: “Who? Anyway, are you mad at me because I did not give that picture back to you?” D: Wilhelmine: “Alright, I’ll let you have a love confession, now run.” Katte: “Well, now I REALLY want to die for you! Can I have this last dance?”
While they dance, Fr. von Kamecke gets the letter notifying her that Fritz tried to flee, connects the dots to the ghost sightings and leaves to tell the Queen.
Katte tells Wilhelmine that he will send her a box full of evidence to destroy, tells her where to find his signet and leaves when the Queen starts screaming.
Change of scenery, Katte’s friend Holtzendorff appears and lets Katte know that they got time off to go to Malchow. Katte says that he doesn’t need it anymore because he will get arrested. Then he gets arrested.
Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)
To get some dates in: “Katte – Ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen“ was published in Leipzig in 1914 and premiered on stage in Dresden on November 6th of the same year. The author, Hermann Burte, was a raging Nazi and this play is apparently one of his less bad works. It is, supposedly, a tragedy and it is obvious that Burte has read some primary sources, like Wilhelmine’s memoirs and Katte’s farewell letters, both of which he quotes verbatim at times. He just decides to ignore some parts.
Act 1 (of five)
We begin our journey in the city palace of Berlin with Crown Prince Friedrich and Princess Wilhelmine playing the flute and lute respectively. Fräulein von Sonsfeld is “in the background”, doing God knows what.
Enter: Our Hero.
Katte informs the siblings and the audience about the newest developments in the English marriage endeavour and is not above using long pauses for dramatic effect:
Katte: “Sir Hotham is…”
Fritz: (after a long, dramatic pause) “…Yes?”
Katte: “Leaving…”
Wilhelmine & Fritz: “Leaving!”
Katte: “Because England wanted Grumbkow fired…”
Fritz: “Fired!”
Katte: “Because he is, allegedly, on the Austrian payroll…”
Wilhelmine: “He is.”
Katte: “And they have found letters....”
Fritz: “Letters?!”
Katte: “In which he talks shit about the King.”
We’ve got a very eloquent Crown Prince, haven’t we?
Katte tells the siblings that Grumbkow is still FW’s bff because Seckendorff – Grumbkow’s friend, their enemy (yes, he says that. Just in case Fritz and Wilhelmine forgot.) – has gotten his hands on the letters that Fritz wrote to England, so Grumbkow is fine and Fritz is in deep shit and should write to Hotham asap.
But who will deliver the letter? Katte will! And he’ll bring Hotham’s answer too, so Fritz grabs his hand for a moment and, presumably looking deep into his eyes in a very friendly manner, tells him that he would be nothing without his dear friend’s services, to which the dear friend replies that his services would be nothing without Fritz’s friendship. They use “Du” for each other btw. Not that that will be important for too long.
Fritz leaves, Katte, Wilhelmine and Fräulein von Sonsfeld lurking in the shadows remain.
Wilhelmine: “So, Katte, why are you acting as my brother’s mailman?”
Katte: “Oh, you know, I’m just somewhat bored.”
Wilhelmine: “Oh Katte, you’re so brave for not selling my brother out to our dad.“
Katte: “There are other responsibilities than those of a soldier’s oath. Different ones. I love your brother; that I am his friend is my greatest reason for happiness on this earth, the meaning of my existence even. In a very heterosexual way.”
Wilhelmine: “If you weren’t here, he’d find someone else.”
Katte: “Actually, I am pretty sure that I am the most fitting person in the entire Prussian army to be Fritz’s friend. I mean, look at me, I’m great. I’m musically inclined, I know languages, I have travelled, I was a law student, which is somehow relevant, and also the King trusts me like no other, for some reason.”
Wilhelmine: “You’re pretty vain.”
Katte: “No, no! I am also ugly as sin! Have I mentioned that I do not have a girlfriend? Also, for some reason, I get a line about being some kind of grand puppeteer who likes manipulating the people around him, isn’t that heroic.”
The only person Katte is not manipulating is FW, but FW likes him anyways and even had a chat with him asking “Why does my son not love me, Katte? Make him love me, Katte!” and Katte is now convinced that dear old dad is actually the sweetest person, deep deep inside. Wilhelmine has never considered that before.
Fritz returns with the finished letter, Katte leaves.
The Parents show up and have a fight about whether Wilhelmine should just become a nun and after that it’s time for some classic FW (the sweetest person, deep deep inside) yelling at his son, throwing musical instruments across the room and threatening violence. After he tells Fritz that he will accompany him on his travels, Katte returns and FW and he are overjoyed to see each other:
FW: “Katte!”
Katte: “Your Majesty!”
FW: “Your father is Good Prussian Noble Hans Heinrich von Katte and your grandfather on your mother’s side is Good Prussian Noble Alexander Hermann von Wartensleben?!”
Katte: “Indeed!”
FW: “Great! Be a Good Prussian Noble like them! Do you know what that means?”
Katte: “Predestination sucks?”
FW: “Exactly! Also your collar is a centimetre too high, fix that.”
Fritz is told that he will be taking “the younger Keith” as a page for the duration of the journey south and is kind of bummed out that Katte will not be his page, for some reason.
The Parents leave, the other three remain.
Katte, ever FW’s biggest fan, remarks that his Majesty was very merciful and gets himself an earful of Hohenzollern-sarcasm with Wilhelmine saying that the King just wanted to lock her up in a convent for life a little bit and Fritz marvelling at the fact that his face is still intact and his hair was not ripped out, a merciful King indeed.
We have now reached talk of escaping. Wilhelmine is not into it and asks Katte to please say something wise.
Katte: “There are three ways to fix this.”
Fritz: “Running, leaving and getting away?”
Katte: “No. Wilhelmine marrying the Duke of Weißenfels…”
Wilhelmine: “Fuck you AND the Duke of Weißenfels!”
Katte: “We could also sacrifice your mom, since this is all totally just her fault…”
Fritz: “True, but no, so let’s run.”
Katte: “Alright, but please don’t leave before you reach Wesel, it won’t be safe.”
Fritz: “How about no? You won’t order me around, I’m leaving whenever I want to leave.”
Katte: “Then I’m not going.”
Wilhelmine: “Listen to the nice man, Fritz, wait until Wesel.”
Fritz: “I won’t promise you shit, actually?? Do you want to imprison me like my father is doing already??”
Katte & Wilhelmine: “We literally just want you to not die.”
Fritz: “Well, I won’t promise you shit! See you around!”
And he leaves. This is the last thing we’ll see of him until the execution scene, so I hope you didn’t get too used to his presence. Wilhelmine tells Katte to run after him and work his magic as a master puppeteer, Katte says “Keith is an unreliable Scotsman, so if Fritz leaves before Wesel he’s absolutely fucked and so are we. See you around, your Highness!” and runs after Fritz.
Act 2
We are in Monbijou, where Frau von Kamecke and Fräulein von Sonsfeld are talking about possible ghost sightings during the last few days, especially a commotion that happened in the evening of the 11th of August. Fr. von Kamecke is convinced that shit is about to go down, Frl. von Sonsfeld is not.
Kamecke: “So, in any case, we’re all gonna die. Oh no, here comes your Princess – YES, a BEAUTIFUL celebration, NOTHING TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT! Oh shit, was that an owl outside!? Do you know what that means!?”
Wilhelmine: “That owls scream when they see light.”
Fr. von Kamecke leaves, possibly frightened of either the owl or Wilhelmine’s “I ain’t afraid of no ghost” approach and Wilhelmine is left alone with Frl. von Sonsfeld whom she ends up kissing passionately because she is just so glad to be alive!
People are having fun at the celebration and Frl. von Sonsfeld attributes that to Katte being there and telling funny stories. He is, apparently, being spoiled rotten by the Queen’s affection. We later find out that SD is “telling FW about how great he is”-levels of into Katte. Because literally everyone in this play is super into Katte. Wilhelmine is the least into Katte and she’s supposedly in love with him.
The miniature portrait of totally just Wilhelmine that Fritz is definitely not a part of is mentioned and apparently SD took to the whole “I will not give this back, the Queen should calm down” thing way better here since not only is she not not talking to him anymore but, according to Frl. von Sonsfeld, Katte is “a favourite”.
Katte is also not done by simply saying “The Crown Prince allowed me to copy it, I made it, it’s mine”, no-o, this Katte apparently said that he “would rather die than give up Wilhelmine’s image”. Wilhelmine swoons a little at that and I believe I saw a glimpse of my own brain while rolling my eyes.
Frl. von Sonsfeld mentions that Katte seems a little distraught because he doesn’t listen to people and suddenly sucks at dancing, so Wilhelmine has her call him over.
Wilhelmine: “Oh no, he’s pale and distracted and telling funny stories! What does this mean? Oh, his fate truly seems to be written all over his face! I do not know how I should know his fate or why the author thought that including the thing about Katte “always looking somewhat grim as if he already knew his fate” was necessary since I wrote that line over a decade later when I, in fact, knew his fate, but whatever. Hey, Katte, why are you only funny when I am not around?”
Katte: “Funny is a word that is hard to define, but apparently the rest of the court had a blast listening to me talking about figuring out my horse’s dietary restrictions after it almost died. I don’t get it either, maybe I’m just that charming.”
Wilhelmine: “You’re looking a little worse for wear and there’s a twitch right where your eyebrows, that even this Katte-approving version of me can’t not comment on, are connected in the middle. What are you worried about?”
Katte: “Alright, I will speak. You know my relationship with the Crown Prince.”
Wilhelmine: “I will react to this statement with “a pained movement” that the author of this summary still does not know how to interpret in other ways than “don’t make me think about the fact that you’re screwing my brother”.”
Katte: “First up, my collar is up to code today. Maybe it is a metaphor, who knows. Now let me tell you about how Fritz and your dad not getting along is tearing my heart apart because I love them both so much and I am still FW’s biggest fan and I honestly don’t get why Fritz has a problem with him. So anyway, I can’t give either of them my whole heart, I am so torn, I think I might die. Onto the actual happenings: I think Fritz has been captured.”
Wilhelmine: “Okay then, leave Berlin asap.”
Katte: "No, I can't leave, all of the King's wrath would come down onto the Crown Prince and you! So I intend to sacrifice myself to save my Prince. However! If you fled with me, I would go! Because fuck what happens to Fritz, I guess. Having feelings that are consistent for more than two lines is hard for me."
Wilhelmine: “Do me a favour and run, I do not want your sacrifice.”
Katte: “Am I not good enough?” D:
Wilhelmine: “Listen, I just vaguely want you not to die and Fritz would say the same.”
Katte: “Who? Anyway, are you mad at me because I did not give that picture back to you?” D:
Wilhelmine: “Alright, I’ll let you have a love confession, now run.”
Katte: “Well, now I REALLY want to die for you! Can I have this last dance?”
While they dance, Fr. von Kamecke gets the letter notifying her that Fritz tried to flee, connects the dots to the ghost sightings and leaves to tell the Queen.
Katte tells Wilhelmine that he will send her a box full of evidence to destroy, tells her where to find his signet and leaves when the Queen starts screaming.
Change of scenery, Katte’s friend Holtzendorff appears and lets Katte know that they got time off to go to Malchow. Katte says that he doesn’t need it anymore because he will get arrested. Then he gets arrested.
End of Act 2. I’ll do the rest as soon as I can!