Popular theater is told very quickly: it is about a farm that needs a successor; a large family in which the roles are fixed; about intrigue for the good of the farm and about love that does not fit in with that. And in the end they get each other, who really love each other, and everything dissolves into goodwill.
The first play of this year’s season on the natural stage trebgast "widder dahaam", is such folk theater, which serves the usual cliches – but also not, because the solution of the turbulences is much closer to the real present world than in the cliche.
This may be due to the author isabella leicht, who directed the play herself in trebgast. And to her biography, according to which she plays the accordion but also dances jazz. This is also reflected in the play, in which she animates the actors to top performances.
The production captivates primarily through many unexpected and small scenic ideas, which the actors implement with dedication. First and foremost sonja beyer, who plays the girlfriend "hermine" the coarse father with charm, sometimes flattered like a girl, then again discreetly lascivious and sometimes 50 years younger.
The scene in the (kauernburg) "schlossla" (castle) at the u-30 party is unsurpassed, but also scenes in which the small and coarse compliments of the rude father (karl walter richter) trickle ice-cold down her back.
In general, the two "old" actors a brilliant couple. When grandpa alois still walks the imaginary dog "waldi" on a leash because it has already died still walks on a leash and demonstratively eats in front of the whole family – not because he is senile, but because he is old-smart – and creates space for himself with the dog show, the audience is doubly surprised.
Silke neukam-kodel and michael vogler, who have the serious roles as farmer and farmer, have less chance to attract attention by gags. Just like miriam gluck as the daughter, who returns home after a stay in the USA and has brought along an ami (michael bahr), with whom she has fallen in love, and who eventually provides the surprising turnaround and solution to the farm succession problem.
Between seriousness and jokes
and also jakob kammerer as son of the farmers and thus expected but unwilling farm successor. He prefers to graduate from high school and get a college-educated girlfriend (susanne bahr). A situation from the real life, with which isabella easily drives a weighty problem of the today’s agriculture, but also hits hair-exactly, without spreading this in her stucco roughly.
More scenic conspicuousness, if not even klamauk, falls to marcus hentschel as the well-to-do, but otherwise neither agriculturally nor interpersonally competent feedstuff manufacturer schlitzkorn.
With this figure the piece again suggests actuality: the contrast between conventional and organic farming, but again without explicitly addressing the issue. Hentschel alias schlitzkorn then also toils vehemently in his role. He jumps back and forth between love and passion on the one hand and, as a preube, ingratiating himself in a manner that is rakish but far too clumsy for franken, every second.
"Widder dahaam" is certainly the most entertaining piece in this year’s program of the nature stage that can be enjoyed as such – with or without the perception of actuality references. In any case, the joy of playing and also the quality of the (amateur) actors is outstanding!)-actors as usual in trebgast again unsurpassed.