The self-proclaimed state actor Bruscon tours the provinces to convince even the hindmost quarter of the world: theater is everything, everything is theater. He and his family have now arrived in Utzbach, population 280, in the dance hall of the local inn "Schwarzer Hirsch". Hostility towards art seems to prevail here: the children are untalented, the women are hysterical hypochondriacs, the air is too humid. The world resists art and especially Bruscon's supposed masterpiece, his comedy "The Wheel of History" that, according to him, contains all the comedies of world literature.