Learning to speak means learning to obey?

One sentence does not yet make a shared language. For Kaspar, however, it is initially all he has: something of his own that he can repeat and change. Then the prompters begin to speak. They supply words, establish connections, make the world comprehensible. With every advance in language, their control over the learner also grows. Peter Handke’s ‘Kaspar’ thus poses an uncomfortable question: when does help become domination?

Claudia Bauer takes up this question at Schauspiel Köln. Her production opens at the Schauspielhaus am Offenbachplatz on 31 October 2026 at 7.30pm. An evening of live music and grotesque humour has been announced. What is interesting here is not simply the critique of authoritarian education, but its difficult-to-resolve contradiction: without language, Kaspar remains excluded; with it, he adopts the order imposed by others.

Those who explain decide

Handke’s character is not a historical reconstruction of the foundling Kaspar Hauser. Rather, the name serves an experiment in how a human being becomes malleable. The prompters do not merely teach names for things. By explaining how things relate to one another and how to behave towards them, they set standards. Language lessons become an introduction to what society deems desirable.

For theatre, this offers a particular opportunity: power need not become visible only through an action behind the words. It can emerge in speech itself — in repetition, in correction, in a voice’s claim to prescribe the correct form. A kindly phrased sentence would then by no means be the opposite of an order. The decisive question would be whether Kaspar can contradict it.

Yet the counter-question must also be asked: does every form of linguistic shaping already amount to subjugation? In an interview with the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger published on 29 October, Bauer describes education as a contradictory process. It enables mutual understanding, she argues, while potentially undermining independence. Her conclusion is not that education should be abolished, but that it should be critically examined. This saves the material from an all-too-simple opposition between the free individual and an evil society.

The rhythm of conformity

Bauer’s musical approach takes Handke’s repetitions and variations as its starting point. In the same interview, she explains the connection with learning language through rhythm, while also pointing to the suggestive power of singing. For a preview, this creates an expectation rather than a finding: music could make audible how an instruction becomes ingrained before we reflect on its content.

Arpen Daks is responsible for the composition and performs live alongside Elisabeth Coudoux. The cast comprises Elias Eilinghoff, Katharina Schmalenberg, Annika Meier, Andreas Grötzinger, Rebekka Biener, Julia Schubert and Fabian Reichenbach. Patricia Talacko designs the set, Vanessa Rust the costumes and Jan Steinfatt the lighting. There is also video work by Jan Isaak Voges and live camera work by Ulrike Schild. How these elements will structure Kaspar’s relationship with the prompters remains to be seen.

The combination of linguistic material and music has a specific precedent in Bauer’s work: ‘humanistää!’, after Ernst Jandl, at the Volkstheater in Vienna, invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen in 2022. Talacko and Eilinghoff were already involved in that production. This is a shared working history, not a prediction for Cologne.

With ‘Kaspar’, the crucial question will be whether the musical rhythm not only illustrates obedience but reveals it as a seductive proposition. After all, being able to speak together also means belonging. The open question of this evening is therefore not only what Kaspar must learn — but how much room for manoeuvre that learning leaves him.