The Rats is a stage drama in five acts by Gerhart Hauptmann, which premiered in 1911, one year before the author received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Unlike other Hauptmann plays, such as The Weavers (1892) and The Assumption of Hannele (1893), this one does not seem ever to have been performed on Broadway. Characters Harro Hassenreuter, former theatrical manager Mrs. Harro Hassenreuter Walburga, their daughter Pastor Spitta Erich Spitta, postulant for holy orders, his son Alice Ruetterbusch, actress Nathanael Jettel, court actor Kaeferstein, Dr. Kegel, pupils of Hassenreuter John, foreman mason Mrs. John, charwoman to Hassenreuter Bruno Mechelke, her brother Pauline Pipercarcka, a servant girl Mrs. Sidonie Knobbe Selma, her daughter Quaquaro, house-steward Mrs. Kielbacke Policeman Schierke Two infants Summary Setting: Berlin, late 19th or early 20th century. Mrs Jette John, housekeeper to Harro Hassenreuter, an ex-theatre manager, scolds the pregnant but unmarried Pauline for wanting to return to a worthless lover intending to forget about her. Childless after having lost Adelbert, her own baby, three years ago, Jette proposes to take care of it herself despite being forced to live under conditions of "mildew an' insec'-powder". To help Jette out, Harro brings her a milk-boiler. After the baby's birth, Jette notices that the boy's hair is of the same color and shade as Adelbert's and so she gives him the same name and designs to keep the boy as her own. When Pauline returns to find out how her baby is, Jette slaps her hard on the ear. Regretting that gesture, she slaps her own face. But when Pauline asks to see the baby a second time, she casts looks of hatred at her. Pressured by her landlady who knows about the birth, Pauline informed the registrar's office about it and now a man from the guardian office will come over. Harro's daughter, Walpurga loves her tutor, Erich Spitta, who has ambitions of becoming an actor and a dramatist. Unaware of her attachment, Harro gives him acting lessons along with two other pupils in Schiller's The Bride of Messina. Harro quarrels with Erich concerning forms of dramatic art, the former favoring Schiller, the latter Lessing. "You are a rat, so to speak", Hassenreuter asserts. "One of those rats who are beginning, in the field of politics, to undermine our glorious and recently united German Empire. They are trying to cheat us of the reward of our labors. And