Die Kreuzelschreiber

Kreuzelschreiber, Die, a three-act comedy (Bauernkomödie mit Gesang) by L. Anzengruber, first performed at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, in October 1872, and published in the same year under the pseudonym L. Gruber. Written in a generalized Austrian dialect, the play is set at the time of the promulgation of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility (1870). An influential farmer persuades the men of the village to sign a declaration supporting a dissenting theologian. The parish priest imposes as penance a pilgrimage to Rome and instructs the wives to go on ‘sex strike’ until their husbands return. The village philosopher, Steinklopferhans, resolves the situation by urging each man to take a girlfriend with him, whereupon the wives' resistance collapses.