Philipp Stölzl

CHICAGO – “Young Goethe in Love” is not the sort of title guaranteed to send American audiences to the theater in droves. For one thing, the title sounds too much like “Shakespeare in Love,” though its original German title, “Goethe!” sounds like a giddy musical along the lines of “Oliver!” Perhaps Goethe’s name should’ve been cut from the title altogether and relegated to a snappy tagline like, “Love Can Cometh and Goethe in an Instant.”