Die Ehre

(Honor) by Hermann Sudermann. Premiered 1889. Suder-mann's play enjoyed abundant popularity through the Wilhelmine period, during some seasons being performed hundreds of times in theaters throughout Germany and Austria. It is a treatment of the class conflict between two families, one rich and one poor, featuring a voluble and attractive raisonneur named Count Trast. The role afforded numerous actors of the period opportunities for Naturalistic acting that rivaled those in plays by Gerhart Hauptmann and George Bernard Shaw. In Die Ehre, Count Trast enriches a young man who had sought an "affair of honor"—that is, a duel—with the wealthy capitalist who had seduced his sister. The seducer had laughed off the young man's challenge because he did not possess the income to make him a social equal. Complicating the picture is the love of the wealthy daughter for the now enriched brother. The play was at the time considered Naturalist because it dealt, albeit superficially, with social distinctions; its reliance on well-made play techniques, along with Trast's declamations borrowed from Shaw, prevented it from consistent inclusion in repertoires into the 1920s. Like other Sudermann plays, it is today a mere curiosity.