Total Verrückt!

Der Regenschirm (Herr Kritzler)

The inclusion of previously established material in the Westerbork revues was by no means unusual. From the Theater Group’s earliest production, performers drew upon their existing professional repertoires; the programme of the first Bunter Abend, for example, even announces Camilla Spira and Chaja Goldstein simply as appearing “in ihrem Repertoire.”

Der Regenschirm, however, provides a particularly well-documented example. The sketch can be traced back at least to the Theater der Prominenten in Scheveningen in 1939. Reviewing Scheveningen lacht! in August of that year, the Dutch critic Menno ter Braak specifically praised Franz Engel in Der Regenschirm and noted that the sketch had itself already been carried over from an earlier programme. Five years later it reappeared in Total Verrückt! at Westerbork, performed by members of the same émigré theatrical circle.

The surviving Westerbork script reproduced below therefore offers a rare direct link between the professional cabaret repertoire of the pre-war exile years and its later performance within the concentration camp.

Comedy sketch script: 7 pages. Cast: Kritzler — Otto Aurich; Lebowitsch — Franz Engel; Gast — Max Ehrlich; Gast — Rosen und Cantor; Kellnerin — Mara Rosen.

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Part II — Ludmilla

Operetta script: 27 pages. This is the script for the second part of Total Verrückt!. The title page identifies Ludmilla as a Parodistische Ritteroper in einem Akt (Parodic knightly opera in one act) by Willy Rosen, with music by Erich Ziegler and Willy Rosen.

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