In her book “Backstage”, Monika Gruber talks about herself, “the woman behind the stage animal”, and gives her fans a glimpse behind the scenes in words and many pictures.
Here are a few anecdotes as "appetizers":
The first laugh
When auditioning at the drama school, at the age of 27, instead of studying a monologue, she played a dialogue between herself and the head of the computer company she worked for the examination board: “A mishmash of German, English, Dutch and Bavarian - and French when colleagues drop by. ”She will“ never forget the feeling I had when the first people down in the auditorium started laughing ”.
And yet - when the chairwoman said "Thank you, Ms. Gruber, that's enough!", She was convinced that she had "perhaps missed the only chance" to become an actress.
A mistake, as we know today.
A catering
The “top number one catering” that has ever been served to her consisted of “a small bottle of ice-cold mineral water (catastrophic for the voice!) And three lard breads that had obviously been drying for so long that they The edges of the loaves desperately bent towards the sky ”.
The organizer also commented on this delicacy with the words: “Miassat langa, right?” And she loves lard bread, says Monika Gruber, especially when it comes to grated lard from the Erdingen weekly market.
It is "worth the fact that it makes you fat".
Fight for the fee
Once, the Gruber woman remembers, they wanted to “shit about the fee” at the organizers in a small town in Upper Bavaria.
During the break, however, manager Egon Bauer made it clear to them in good Bavarian “where the frog has the curls” and that they shouldn't dare to “piss” him, otherwise he would “fix their heads so that he could get them still wobbles until Oktoberfest ”.
No question that the crooks pulled out the money, but the cabaret artist and manager preferred to run away after the idea of “screeching tires”.
blackout
Not just a hangover, but a veritable blackout once happened to the artist near Hengersberg in Lower Bavaria.
“I didn't know how it went on in the program, nor the title of the program, and if someone had asked my name at that moment, I would probably have answered: 'I belong to mom and I live at home!' “Leaving the stage after“ what felt like half an hour, which in truth should have been about three minutes ”, returning to the same.
And what do you tell the audience then?
She absolutely had to call home briefly and inquire how the cat Wuschl is doing, because “he has been neutered”.
The fall
Monika Gruber also fell for the “Babbn” once, and did so right after entering the stage in Schrobenhausen.
The audience applauded the supposed feat, only two women in the front row recognized the seriousness of the situation and helped her.
But a professional like Moni can withstand such a mishap, the main thing is that all teeth are still there.
The sound technician's dry comment afterwards: "I swear to you, Moni, your voice sounded very different than usual in the first quarter of an hour after the fall." After that, "ois normal" was again.
Monika Gruber:
"Backstage - The woman
behind the stage animal".
Piper Verlag, Munich,
240 pages;
29 euros.
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Lots of anecdotes and even more photos: Monika Gruber presents her book “Backstage”.
© Photo: Marcus Schlaf
