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MAN TO MAN (Jacke wie Hose) is a gripping one-woman play by renowned German playwright Manfred Karge. The play investigates the life of a woman who, after the untimely death of her husband during the economic disaster of the Weimar period, takes over his identity to make a living as a crane-operator at the factory where he used to work. This choice to become a man bans her to the role of eternal outsider. From this position she observes the grand sweep of history, the rise of Nazism, the 2nd World War, the devision and the reconstruction of Germany. Her insights in a wasted life leaves her with many questions about love, the status of women, the value of survival and the nature of a male dominated society.
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ABOUT MAN TO MAN (JACKE WIE HOSE) |
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AS DIE BROEK PAS / MAN TO MAN A SHORT HISTORY OF JACKE WIE HOSE
SOME TIME OR OTHER Somewhere or other someone or other told me a story of a young woman who attempted, during the Great Depression, to hold on to the job her late husband had had. To do this, she stepped into the role of the deceased through disguise` and other forms of artifice. Apparently, however, the attempt soon came to grief. A newspaper article revealed all.
SOME TIME LATER Whilst reading Brecht’s short story Der Arbeitsplatz I discover that, he Brecht, also knew about this episode.
EARLY 1982 When Lore Brunner asks me to write something for her, I remember this case and decide to use it as the basis for a dramatic plot. It was to be a “life of Germany”, in monologue form, refeecting the last few decades of German history. Dramatic literature throughout the ages has had recourse to breeches’parts for erotic, but not so far I know, for social purposes.
JULY/AUGUST 1982 In a Provençal holiday villa, surrounded by fields of flowering lavender, at a sufficient distance from the location of the episode, the text of Jacke Wie Hose comes into being.
15 DECEMBER 1982 First night of the play, with Lore Brunner in the role of Max Gericke, at the studio of the Bochum Theatre.
MEANWHILE The play is translated into a number of languages and performed in several countries in Europe. Lore Brunner has performed her interpretation of the role of Max Gericke in theatres throughout the world.
26th JANUARY 1987 By sheer coincidence I come across a copy of the newspaper article about the subject of the play. Years later, I am disturbed to find myself looking at the face of the woman whose story had such an impact on me. I am astounded to read that she had succeeded in playing her ‘role’ for twelve years. All along I’d assumed that keeping up the artifice so flawlessly for so long was purely the prerogative of art. (Manfred Karge, Vienna, February 2nd, 1987 translated by Tinch Minter and Anthony Vivis)
WOMAN DISGUISED AS A MAN FOR TWELFE YEARS One day the tax inspectorate discovered that a nightwatchman who had worked diligently at a factory in Mainz for twelve years was a woman. After separating from her husband, she had appropriated his identity papers, disguised herself as a man and applied a job. She had even acted the role of a good family man by getting married in a registry office to a woman with two children. (Wide World) |
