How to Die Laughing

How To Die Laughing is a play in seven acts. Sherlock
Holmes and Dr Watson are left defeated by the circumstances of the mysterious
death of Dr Praetorius – a celebrated professor killed in a car crash. The
sudden appearance of Mr Shunderson, Praetorius’ factotum, only serves to
confuse them further. But when Shunderson begins to tell the unbelievable story
of his master’s demise, the fate of Praetorius gradually unfolds – as the four
months before his eventual death are retold in flashback. However not
everything is as straightforward as it sometimes seems: for instance, why was
the respected physician hauled in front of a Board of Ethics the day before he
died? Could it have something to do with the treatment of his student Maria
Violetta? Or does it go further back to the opening of his practice in
Peepnest? And why is Shunderson so secretive about his own past?

Dr Job Praetorius was written in 1932, at a time
when democracy was being challenged by extremists. But while the surface of the
play is almost untouched by that turbulence, underneath lies a deep resentment
of the unfolding political climate, and the controlling machinations of envy,
greed, and stupidity. Curt Goetz (1888-1960) is a German theatrical institution,
as a stage and film actor, a director, and a playwright. His plays echo the
romanticism of Schiller and Goethe, the expressionism of Wedekind, the
constructed wit of Oscar Wilde, and the natural drama of Ibsen. They are not
sentimental but emotional, not intellectual but intelligent. Goetz wrote his
plays “guided by the compulsion to create laughter”. This compulsion proved
well placed; no other writer’s comedies have been as frequently incorporated
into the repertoire of the German theatre in the last eighty years.