Das Friedens-feyer

Das Friedens-feyer ("The festival of peace") is a German play in two acts, with songs, by an unknown author, performed in Cape Town in 1803.

Performance history in South Africa

A play announced as Das Friedens-feyer was first performed in German in the African Theatre, Cape Town on 12 March 1803 by Het Hoogduitsche Gezelschap van het Liefhebbery Theater with Die Ueberrasschung (Stephanie).

F.C.L. Bosman (1928. p. 79) suggests the spelling may actually have been either Die Freidensfeier or Das Friedensfeuer , and that it was a work by an unknown (French?) author. He suggests that the play had been translated into Dutch as Het Vredensfeest by Johann André (Arend Simonszoon Fokke) in 1802 (a play which deals with the Treaty of Amiens signed between France and England in 1802). Of course it may be exactly the opposite, i.e. that Johann André's Dutch translation of another play had in fact in turn been translated into German by the company and performed in Cape Town.

Another possibility is that the play produced in Cape Town was in fact a short children's play, Die Friedensfeyer, oder Die unvermuthete Wiederkunft ("The peace Festival, or The unsuspected return"). This is a well-known two-act German musical comedy for children by Christian Felix Weisse (1726–1804), with music by Johann André (1741–1799), published in 1779 in the fifth volume of Weisse's children's journal series Der Kinderfreund ("The Children's Friend"). In this case of course, it is unlikely that it would have been the play translated by Johann André, since the play greatly pre-dates the events recounted in the Dutch play.