Goethes Reineke Fuchs

The beast fable is the oldest way of saying what cannot be said about the people in charge, and Goethe put this one into hexameters. Reineke cheats, lies, murders and is rewarded for all of it, because the court that judges him is worse than he is. The house quotes Goethe's own line from 1796 — the material is of yesterday and of today — and stakes the evening on the second half of that being still true. One performer speaks every animal at the court, with a piano beside him. It is irreverent about him from start to finish, which for a poet this venerated is a useful thing for one evening to be.