The Prince of Homburg

a romantic drama concerning honour

Of all the plays penned by the greatest playwright of German romanticism, Henrich Kleist, his comedy The Broken Jug is performed the most frequently. However, in Germany itself, romantic drama The Prince of Homburg is considered to be Kleist´s most significant work. It tells the story of a young war hero and dreamer who has fallen in love with the Elector´s daughter, Natalie. The Elector himself is in favour of their love, but their absolute happiness ends at the moment when the prince, who is dreaming about Natalie while attending a council of war, fails to hear a crucial order and leads his troop in a forbidden attack during a battle. He is successful, but is sentenced to death for disobeying an order. This difficult situation makes the prince fundamentally re-evaluate everything he believed in and recognized before. This event of war turns into a great drama concerning love, honour and justice. We approached a young and gifted director, Mikoláš Tyc, who was responsible for the production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at our theatre, and engaged him in directing this thrilling story. A brand new translation is being prepared for our production by Václav Cejpek.