The parasite at Nationaltheater Mannheim

Social climber Selicour will do anything at all to get himself recommended to his minister Narbonne for the post of ambassador. Rivals such as hard-working La Roche are quickly eliminated through intrigues. Or relieved of the fruits of their work, such as the good-natured Firmin. And Selicour steals the poems penned by Karl, who has recently fallen in love, because he hopes that he can use them to win over Narbonne’s daughter, Charlotte. When the injured parties begin a counter-offensive, the enlightened minister realises that he has been taken in by a conniving hypocrite, and concludes: »The web of lying surrounds the best, the honest person cannot break through, creeping mediocrity gets further than winged talent, illusion rules the world, and justice is found only on the stage.«

Schiller’s translation of Louis Benoît Picard’s comedy Médiocre et rampant ou le moyen de parvenir was premièred in Weimar in 1803, and is set in the milieu of politicians and officials. Selicour, who is cut from the same cloth as Molière’s Tartuffe, is a hypocrite and career opportunist without any sense of morals. A conman who steals intellectual property and takes credit for the achievement of others: a parasite. Stefan Bachmann’s productions have been invited several times to the Berliner Theatertreffen. He was theatre director in Basel and from from 2013 will be director of the Schauspiel Köln.