In his “Special Formal Report” of 24 April 1808, Weimarian court actor Heinrich Becker informed his superiors about a little theatrical irregularity. Becker was reporting in his official function as controlling supervisor for representations—a kind of stage manager for the theatre. By this report the “graciously decreed Noble Saxonian Commission for Direction of the Court Theatre,” chaired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, had to take official notice of the following punishable histrionic faux pas:
Wednesday the 20th of April during the performance of Piccolomini [Schiller's] in the scene with the butler Actus 3, Scene 3. Mister Morhardt has willfully acted the cavalry captain Neumann in a comical way.