The three remaining members of the group – Tilman Hicketier, Andreas Wolke and Heinrich Krey – must find an immediate replacement if they are to win the crown for the third year in a row.
Unfortunately, the competition requires that the singer is a resident of the principality, and there's only one tenor left who fits that description: Paul Schippel, a lowly clarinet player from the dregs of society.
Uncomfortable as he is with the idea but determined to keep the crown, Hicketier sends Schippel a highly discourteous letter summoning him to appear before them.
However, a chance encounter with the Prince – who recognises the quartet members and expresses his wish that they emerge with the crown once again – forces Hicketier to approach Schippel a second time.
He relents somewhat in his antagonism, but retains certain considerations; chief amongst these is that Schippel does not associate with his sister Thekla, over whom Hicketier has an intensely possessive attitude.
After the rehearsal is over, Schippel, drunk with the success he's been having in breaking into the middle-class society, confronts Hicketier alone and demands the hand of Thekla in marriage.
Almost immediately, Krey – pushed by Wolke into confessing his love for Thekla – bursts in to ask Hicketier's permission to marry her, which is readily accepted.
Academics have also argued that Sternheim's works are sometimes difficult to market in foreign languages due to the difficulty in categorising his style as belonging to any one specific movement.
[2] Once seventy years have passed since the playwright's death (in 2013), the copyright will expire and the plays will enter the public domain, which may lead to an upsurge in Sternheim's works being performed in the English language.