"Snow White" at the Schauspiel Zurich: fairy tales on schnoddrig

If Luisa did not exist, then perhaps it would not have come to this theatrical afternoon. The eight-year-old is the daughter of Nicolas Stemann and as such is not completely uninterested in Dad's work. But what always staged there! Ten hours of "Faust" were Luisa too long and constantly these endless Jelinek text areas, they went already on the biscuit - could not even do just before Christmas something completely different? A fairy tale for example?

One of the most renowned directors of the German-speaking theater agreed, a bit was the daughter's content and artistic advice - and so just came what no one has expected: Stemann's first production at the Zurich Schauspielhaus, where he has since this season together with Benjamin von Blomberg shares the directorship, is "Snow White". The expectations "to undermine," said the theater maker after the premiere, had him at heart.

But be careful: fairy-tale-correct is by no means. Now no one has expected that Stemann conjures up a cozy touch with dubious morality and clumsy pedagogy in dusty glittering romance. Roughly speaking, he remains faithful to the story of the princess, poisoned by the evil stepmother, cared for by the dwarfs and rescued by the prince. All around, however, Stemann in his first self-written piece was more likely to embark on political boulevard in order to trace the current societal difficulties with the often-narrated material comical, anarchic and family-friendly.

Fairytale for Future!

If the long-haired fairy-tale uncle, who does not want to be a lazy Es-once-appeaser ("I'll tell you a shit!"), Is about to be prevented from telling the children "the truth about the world," then even the smallest understands that there are evil powers at work who want to keep their people short and stupid. In fact, the usual suspects from the Enchanted Forest, all of whom are somehow networked with each other (Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf are passing by), are also finding it increasingly difficult to enforce their rational notions of a clean and humane environment against the preponderance of capital and arrogance.

While the balance is greedy for even more zeros before the comma floats through the air and annoyed new wife of the king annoying the living mirror with the eternal question of the most beautiful in the country ("For your age you look good") brews something among the fairy tale characters together: Stemann makes them little citizens of our time who want to see their future cheated and storm the barricades of lethargic thinking: fairy tales for future!

Zoe¿ Aubry

Actress Henni Jörissen: At the premiere there was jubilation

The capital they distrust, what looks in the sight of the villas on Lake Zurich, of course, after revolt, especially since everything results in the establishment of an ecologically clean and peace-loving forest community that makes it comfortable in the tiny little house of the dwarfs. Until the king rode horseback as a real estate stallion and therefore wants to turn the nature reserve into a glassy business paradise: "The real fairy tales are in the land register!"

It's going well, of course, even if the prince, who kisses Schneewittchen awake, rather tumbem cut is and celebrate the black-spiked and donate joyful stepmom in the end like a mother Teresa. Like all the brashly-sloppy tone that moths the tale to the zeitgeist comedy, sometimes tilts into a good-humoring peace-joy-pancake-rippling. The world is beautiful, claims the multi-generational multi-purpose cupboard and tears at Zipfelmützchen and never wants to be lonely.

To-do list of worst outcrops

By the way, if the dwarfs, who can not decide whether they are six or seven, are eaten from the plate and are sleeping in their little bed behind the seven mountains, then the gentlemen ask themselves with a beard, a lumberjack shirt and in Levi's. Urtyp jeans: "Who's doing that?" Sprüngli and Zwingli briefly consider each other's name and say that it could be "a stranger", but reject that fear again in favor of deep-seated humanity. But the topic was addressed at least once briefly, as well as the organ donation, the vegan diet, the loneliness in society, the beauty craze or the bureaucracy in text and image occur as if it was to tick off a to-do list of the worst excesses.

The bubbly, playful and transforming seven-headed Zurich troupe, however, parodies and raps and sings (with some very beautiful songs by Stemann, accompanied live by Thomas Kürstner and Sebastian Vogel) over such rebellious harmlessness and populated in the flying costume change (Marysol del Castillo) a multi-purpose stage (Katrin Nottrodt) that makes it easy to plunge from enchantment into reality.

Whether the target audience from the age of eight years is always understood, whether the excuses and language games are always child-friendly and comprehensible, is an open question. Jubilant and laughed at the premiere in any case violently. And that, what you did not want the little ones thematically (fairy tales are so full of ambiguity), that is there in December in a Snow White version in the evening for the adults. The adults-cut, so to speak.

"Snow White Beauty Queen". Schauspielhaus Zürich, further dates from 13.11.