Once upon a time, Prince Leonce lived in the kingdom of Bum and Princess Lena lived in the kingdom of Piddle. They did not meet until a slightly forgetful King Peter found a knotted handkerchief in his pocket one fine morning. He could not, for the life of him, remember what he was not supposed to forget. His son, Prince Leonce, indulged in dolce far niente, or – in the words of his companion Valerio – noble idleness. This melancholic idyll was disrupted by King Peter, who was finally reminded by his valet that he had knotted the handkerchief because he had to arrange the wedding of his successor. When Prince Leonce heard that he had to marry Princess Lena, he ran away in indignation. Princess Lena was not happy to hear about her imminent marriage, either, so she, too, left her home under cover of night. On the way to Italy, the two fugitives met and fell in love with each other without knowing who they really were. Meanwhile, the preparations for the royal wedding went on uninterrupted as if nothing had happened ... Although seemingly a story about how one can not escape his or her fate, Büchner's comedy is imbued with social criticism. Georg Büchner, a young medical doctor, was an ardent opponent of self-centered elites that had lost touch with the world, for which he was persecuted. After all, he was the first playwright who chose a poor proletarian as the protagonist of his 1837 play Woyzeck. Therefore his comedy Leonce and Lena is also a satire mocking the very genre of comedy, mocking the authors who use laughter to tranquilize the audience instead of awakening it.
