Schroffenstein family

Heinrich von Kleist's first drama FAMILIE SCHROFFENSTEIN is at once a family history, a knight's tale, a love story and a mythological story: a wild, worldly work that oscillates between high pathos and kitchen-sink realism, harrowing tragedy and grotesque comedy. The Schroffenstein family consists of two tribes, the House of Rossitz and the House of Warwand, which have been linked since time immemorial by an inheritance contract. This stipulates that if one of the two lines dies out, the other inherits the entire estate. But what should keep the family together divides them instead: A number of unexplained deaths among the children of both houses cause mutual mistrust. Count Rupert of the House of Rossitz swears revenge for the supposedly violent death of his son and wants to wipe out the House of Warwand. In doing so, he unleashes a seemingly unstoppable spiral of violence that also characterizes violent conflicts today. While the fathers and mothers believe appearances and supposedly clear evidence and suspect the other branch of the family, their children Agnes and Ottokar trust their emotional certainty ... They met in the mountains, in nature, and fell in love. Can they manage to overcome their parents' hatred, solve the mysterious deaths and reconcile the two houses of their family?