»Trust, innocence, fidelity, love, religion, the fear of God are like animals that talk.« – In Heinrich von Kleist’s tragedy »Die Familie Schroffenstein«, instinctive and emotional action and vindictiveness take the place of reason and morality. The Houses Rossitz and Warwand of the Schroffenstein family are bound together by an inheritance contract, »by virtue of which, after the total extinction of one tribe, its entire property should fall to the other«. The death of a son of the Rossitz family is once again a cause for distrust and accusations: The suspicion falls immediately upon the Warwand family. Not even the young love between Agnes from the house of Warwand and Ottokar from the house of Rossitz can be saved from the feud. The lovers‘ search for truth and reconciliation ends in a catastrophe. My project visualizes Kleist’s drama, which even more than 200 years after its creation still seems fascinatingly modern, as a book project.
