Juli Zeh's "Über Menschen" at the Munich Volkstheater: acclaimed premiere!

Created: 01/23/2022, 18:18

By: Katja Kraft

Stranded on land is Dora (Maral Keshavarz).

And is also there with little Franzi (Anne Stein), the daughter of a neo-Nazi © Gabriela Neeb

Juli Zeh's 2021 "Über Menschen" is a bestseller.

Host Christian Stückl has now edited and staged the novel, which was written during the Corona pandemic, for the Munich Volkstheater.

Definitely worth seeing!

Under the clouds, freedom of speech must be limitless.

In the Munich Volkstheater they hang narrowly low on the horizon.

Sure, we are in Brandenburg.

There is also the matter with the

horizon.

Country eggs and Ossis.

What the hell does a well-trained advertising agent want here?

In bracken.

A place name like a work instruction on a construction site.

"Let's break the floor!"

Juli Zeh's "Über Menschen" takes place in Brandenburg

The ground on which Dora (Maral Keshavarz) wants to establish herself in Juli Zeh's novel "Über Menschen" is an overgrown garden with an abandoned house in it. In the middle of the Corona lockdown, Dora moved from Berlin to Bracken. However, she had made the plan to flee the city long before the outbreak of the pandemic – she keeps emphasizing this to herself and everyone else. But she had imagined life in the country a little differently back then. Incidentally, so would the people she would be dealing with. Whereby: how actually? Brown Brandenburgers everywhere – a politically correct woman of the 21st century naturally refuses to accept such prejudices. Dora feels correspondingly alienated when she meets the neighbor on her right (!). He introduces himself with an announcement: "I'm the village Nazi here.“Welcome to Bracken.

The Nazi next door: Country life forces Dora (Maral Keshavarz) to deal with the neo-fascist Gote (Jakob Immervoll).

© Gabriela Neeb

Christian Stückl edited and staged the book, which was published in 2021, for the Munich Volkstheater.

The celebrated world premiere now took place on the sepia-covered stage.

Only every now and then a bright light shines through and hope shines through.

humanity.

Among the many caricatures of herself.

Christian Stückl cleverly fashioned a multi-person play from the first-person narrative.

Also in the center here Dora and Gote, the village Nazi.

Jakob Immervoll is a stunner in combat boots and sweaty clothes.

In the course of the piece, he manages to trigger what Juli Zeh was celebrated for, but also criticized for.

This neo-fascist, he touches.

Yes, as a viewer you can understand, if not understand, why he gets mad when it comes to foreigners and "those up there".

You feel what Dora also feels at some point: compassion for this creep.

Once Gote approaches Dora with a spade.

And in her house, which used to be the village school, raises two tin soldiers from the underground.

He looks at her lovingly.

In this small scene, the whole dilemma of this character is revealed.

Gote hid the tin men there as a child.

Because they were "too valuable to play with".

And: "No one should steal them from me." Even as a boy, he stood in the way of his happiness - and was haunted by the fear that others could take something away from him.

Longs for attention: little Franzi (Anne Stein, right), who is looking for this in Dora (Maral Keshavarz).

© Gabriela Neeb

But only those who get involved with the guy will find out.

Who endures Goth.

Him and the other Brackeners, who crawl out of the stage pit and into Dora's garden from all sides.

vermin equal.

Tom (Steffen Link) and Steffen (Julian Gutmann) for example.

They, too, initially seem like the cliché of a Brandenburger that has come to life: AfD-voting, uneducated lateral thinkers.

But how that changes simply by listening to them.

And notice: Hey, she's not as black and white as Dora (and with her, we, the audience) likes to see the world.

Gutmann's solo about those who, with a beer belly in their camping chair, still think they're superhuman is particularly strong.

"Supermen in undershirts.

If that isn't a stair joke."

“About People” teaches us not to simply ignore others

But from afar it is easy to rise above these "left behind". Country life, on the other hand, calls for behavior, unlike the city with its anonymity. To Franzi (touching as a girl longing for affection: Anne Stein), God's daughter, who insists that her dad is the best dad in the world. Or to Sadie (Pola Jane O'Mara), the single mother who toils in night shifts and still gets nowhere. And again and again to Dora's ex Robert (Max Poerting), the fighter for the world.

Dora and Gote would never have met on Tinder.

They do it because life has prescribed it for them.

And because they endured it.

Because, despite all the prejudices, they have opened up to the other.

Everyone has their story.

Is she rewritable?

"Do you think you can change?" Dora Gote asks once.

And he replies: "One can die."

Heavy applause.