Goethe muss weg!
By Walter Hesse
Poison, pistol or dagger: two women of Weimar's literary circle work out how to be rid of the great man.
In 9 days
11 September 2026 · 20:00 Uhr
About Goethe muss weg!
A criminal farce, and the premise is a small revenge on the whole idea of the Dichterfürst. Two members of Weimar's literary society, Adele Schopenhauer and Caroline von Egloffstein, have been publicly dismissed by Goethe — them and the romantic literary taste they stand for — and they respond by working through the options in the subtitle. It never happened, obviously. What makes it more than a sketch is the premise the house builds on: a great man who held court and handed down verdicts, and a small town full of clever women who had to live with them. Two actresses play it.
Performances
Also on stage here
Where
Lucas-Cranach-Haus, Markt 11/12, 99423 Weimar
Organiser
Theater im Gewölbe
Facts checked against the organiser on 29 August 2026
Places and people
Historical figures
1749–1832 • writer • statesman • naturalist
The intended victim, and the reason: his public dismissal of the two women and their taste in literature.
1797–1849 • writer
One of the two plotters — the house casts her as a woman of the literary circle with a score to settle.
Historical periods
The other side of the classical court — what it felt like to be judged by it.
For roughly sixty years a duchy of a few thousand people held the centre of German literature, because its ruler kept inviting writers to live there and then gave them jobs. That is the whole mechanism, and it ran from Goethe's arrival in 1775 to his death in 1832.