Leoce și Lena- with English subtitles

Prince Leonce has lost all motivation to continue playing the role he was cast in. He no longer wants to pretend, he no longer wants to contribute to the illusion that the world in which he lives is not a stable run by a buffoon, he no longer wants to consume with everyone else the same romance devoid of wit or originality, and above all, he no longer wants to marry Princess Lena, whom he has never seen.

So, with his new beggar valet Valerio, he flees into the world, only to discover that the world is an endless repetition of the same place from which he fled. But because romance is like a lynx, chance causes Princess Lena to run away from the same marriage, into the same wilderness to which Leonce has fled, and the two fall in love and immediately forget all the tirades they have held against love, unaware that they have met the very person they were running away from.
It’s only after they marry that they discover that they’ve done nothing more than carry out a pre-arranged plan like puppets. And with this awakening to reality, the questions remain – is it really possible to make your own decisions? What do we do once the illusions have dissipated? And how did Büchner in 1836 write something so modern and absurd about the absurdity of our existence?