Grade 12 students with a least one year of German will be able to read the entire play.  Subsequent to a pre-reading introduction to the problems facing soldiers returning to a country ravaged by war, they will probably devote at least two days to short scenes, a week to longer ones.  As their introduction to the text and their initial reading, students in Exercise A are told to read the prologue to identify the three people speaking in this scene (characteristic things they do or what they look like) and to discover to whom the three people in this scene are talking.

Typical responses might be:

Der Beerdigungsunternehmer rülpst.  Er sieht Beckmann springen.  Er spricht mit sich.

Beckmann hat ein schlimmes Bein.  Er springt in die Elbe.  Er spricht mit der Elbe.

Die Elbe ist nicht süssduftend, kein junges Mädchen (eine alte Frau?).  Sie spricht mit Beckmann.