Gerdt von Bassewitz

Bassewitz, Gerdt von (1878–1923), German writer and playwright, who is chiefly famous for his fairy‐tale play Peterchens Mondfahrt (Little Peter's Flight to the Moon, 1911). Influenced by James Barrie's play Peter Pan, Bassewitz depicted two children, Peter and Anneliese, who are transported to a magical dreamworld where they meet a beetle by the name of Sumsemann, who has lost one of his legs. The children decide to help the beetle find his leg and travel through the Milky Way on a rocket to the moon, where they encounter the sandman and other creatures. They learn that the man in the moon has stolen the beetle's leg, and with the help of the lightning man and the storm giant the children retrieve the beetle's leg. Bassewitz's sentimentalized portrayal of the children and their childish language contributed to making this play a classic in German children's theatre, and it was performed regularly at Christmas time up to the end of the 1960s. In recent years it has lost its popularity. Though Bassewitz wrote other plays for children such as Pips, der Pilz (Pips, the Mushroom, 1916) and Der Wahrhaftige (The True One, 1920), he never achieved the success that he scored with Peterchens Mondfahrt.

Bibliography

• Schedler, Melchior, Kindertheater: Geschichte, Modelle, Projekte (1972).

— Jack Zipes