A Conspiracy Against Love
By Charlotte von Stein
Translated by David Clauson
“Director Smyl deserves credit for bringing us a form of theatrical presentation we don’t experience often.”
- Robin Waples Sault Star
Cast & Crew
William Ambeault - Avelos/Major
Ada Crowder - Luitgarde/Peter
Luci Siklosi - Theodora
Wendylynn Corrigan - Menonda
CJ Morton - Daval/Friedrich/Doctor
Thomas Groulx - Monrose
Ash Aikens-McIntosh - Florine/Conrad
Abigail Carr - Susette/Old Woman
Scott White - Stage Manager
Vici Filice - Assistant Director & Lighting Designer
Charlie Foulkes - Lighting Technician
Director’s Note
When I first read A Conspiracy Against Love or The New System of Freedom, the first thought that I had about how to create this world was immediately honesty, and as such the Enlightenment era. A Conspiracy Against Love offers a rebuttal to the extreme ideals of the Enlightenment, those focused upon reason and science over faith in love.
A Conspiracy Against Love is a fascinating exploration into the world of womanhood through the eyes of a woman during the Enlightenment era. David Clauson offers a heartfelt translation of Charlotte von Stein’s words. Charlotte von Stein takes the time to truly evaluate multiple women’s journey through what it means to find love, deal with the difficulties of status that comes with female agency in a time where modern audiences often assume women don’t have any, and explores what it is to be a man or woman in a modern society. Stories about women are often glossed over on the classical stage, so getting the chance to dive deep during our rehearsal process into what made these women tick is something that I am incredibly interested in. The deep dives that we got the chance to work during our rehearsal process were focused upon the stories of Florine, Luitgarde, Susette, Menonda, and Theodora regarding female agency, and I hope that you fall in love with them as much as I have through the process.
The choice to double (and triple cast) this production is something that was an easy choice to make. With Charlotte von Stein writing such a concise piece, with some characters only appearing on stage for two or three scenes, ensuring that all of the actors get a good amount of stage time was the first priority. To go with that, there is distinct comedy that exists in doubling. Lord Daval being played by the same actor who plays Friedrich his witty servant who constantly makes fun of him, Luitgarde doubled with the servant who wants nothing to do with Daval, the young Avelos doubled with the old and gouty Major.
A key addition to our process was the use of Delsarte gestural work. Delsarte’s work was popularized by the melodrama of the operatic stage and continued on into the 1930s. You’ll see these gestures throughout the piece, but particularly whenever the lovers interact together. Please sit back, enjoy your drink and snacks, and join us for this jolly jaunt through German taverns and castles!
Translator’s Note
A New System of Freedom was neither produced nor published in von Stein’s lifetime, despite her wishes. As she wrote to her son Fritz in June of 1798: “I am writing a comedy, for the older one gets, the funner life seems. I believe it will not be bad. - This play should find an audience, but without my name...at most theaters, one gets eight louis d’or for a manuscript of a good comedy…[but] the local theater only plays published dramas.” As she wrote to Charlotte Schiller upon finishing the play in February 1799, “You will certainly find it quite amusing, and would be fairly well if sent out; I would like it to be done.” Clearly, von Stein was proud of her work, and wanted it to be shared with the world. The draft in the Goethe- and Schiller-Archive contains edits made by the hand of a professional editor and von Stein’s responses. It wasn’t until Charlotte’s great-grandson Felix von Stein published a heavily reworked version in 1867 that the play ever saw publication. In 1874, the play was produced at a theater in Rudolstadt; a program from this performance claims it to be the world premiere. German director Franz Ulbrich, then of the National theater Weimar, performed his own reworking of Felix’s text in 1930; this version was then published in 1948. In 2006, Canadian scholars Linda Dietrick and Gaby Pailer returned to the draft in the Schiller-Archive and published their transcription, which serves as the primary basis for this translation.
In contrast, to von Stein’s male contemporaries at the Weimar court, who were writing grandiose verse plays and sprawling historical epics, A New System of Freedom is a tight, compact comedy that draws on tropes found in popular theater and Italian opera. This play features Hanswurst, the trickster peasant clown of German folk and pageant theater. Von Stein combines Hanswurst with the Italian commedia dell’arte character Harlequin, always accompanied by his trusty sidekick Scapin. Here, the characters are played by women, adding a gendered layer to the comedy. Lord Daval is a caricature: he paces back and forth thinking all day wearing a toga; he puts on opera glasses and jumps into his shirt every morning because he refuses to dress himself like everyone else. Like Monrose (and like the men in von Stein’s life), he is obsessed with the classical world of Greece and Rome. Daval’s utopian ideology proves unsustainable and hypocritical; in the end, he succumbs to the power of love. The principal male characters in A New System of Freedom are fanatical intellectuals and bumbling soldiers. In contrast, Menonda, Susette, and their female compatriots embody the practical, level-headed reason that triumphs in the end.
Von Stein wanted this play to be read, published, performed, and enjoyed; in a letter to Charlotte Schiller she describes her dream of a “thick and beautifully printed and bound book, which I wrote.” With this translation, I’ve tried to make something that retains the comic sparkle and wit of the original for a 21st-century audience used to film adaptations of Austen. Some scenes have been condensed to streamline the turns and revelations in the plot.
- David Clauson
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