People meet and chat at Ridolfo’s Coffeehouse. The conversations are mostly about money. But they are of course also about feelings, ideals, friendship, love, fidelity, and respectability. But all this has its price. The TV adaptation of the play – still very popular today – is based on the Venetian comedy writer Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) and the stage productions of Fassbinder and Peer Raben in Bremen and Munich (with the antiteater group).