As of: March 9, 2024, 1:21 p.m
By: Rudolf Ogiermann
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“Hello, take care!” Monika Gruber in the sold-out Munich Olympic Hall.
© Gisela Schober/Getty Images
Quitting quietly is not Monika Gruber's thing.
At the end of her stage career, which she wants to end at the age of 52, the cabaret artist had another blast in the sold-out Olympiahalle.
Big surprise in front of a big backdrop - Andreas Gabalier is the "young Austrian artist" who is supposed to get the audience in the mood in the Munich Olympiahalle on Friday evening for what - at least that's what it's announced - will be Monika Gruber's very last performance.
And the “folk rock 'n' roller” does a good job, announces the Gruberin (“Please stand up!”) as “probably the greatest cabaret artist in the nation”.
An intro like for a superstar from the USA (and a bit of advertising for your own concert in the summer).
Gabalier's songs ("Damn it's a long time ago") and especially those of the other hotshot Roland Hefter ("Naa, naa, naa, the times are over") are a better fit for the 52-year-old, who is in "Without Words", the title of the song program, the fans' eyes and ears are immediately drawn to their Bavarian homeland, to tradition, to Grandma's humor, which is the only way to endure life.
“Is it okay to be funny in these times?” is her rhetorical question.
Answer: “You’re not just allowed to, you have to!”
The grubber on stage, all in black, with pink pumps, is, it quickly becomes clear, different from the grubber in her last two books (“And Deliver Us from the Stupid”, “Welcome to the Wrong Movie”).
Charm - usually - beats sharpness, the woman can also be self-ironic, complains, quite explicitly, about her own aging, but doesn't think about taking care of herself in the future.
The friends she goes out with make sure of that – “they eat everything, they drink everything”.
The good old days are the white and blue thread (also) this evening, times when guys were still guys and not “hipster idiots with buns” where you had to think: “Is he a man, is he a woman or is he still thinking? The cabaret artist regularly asserts that she has become “more relaxed” and “doesn’t get upset” - and then mocks virtuously about spoiled mutts and spoiled children, constantly paddling and with a “Snickers” allergy, about the struggle with the display that appeals to people more and more replaced.
Parting pain: At the end there was a standing ovation for the cabaret artist.
© Gisela Schober/Getty Images
There is hardly any shooting of prominent heads, only two shots are aimed at Robert Habeck, the favorite enemy of the “conservatives”, and one at Markus Söder, who is “pointlessly spinning around on himself”.
Which doesn’t mean that “Without Words” is apolitical.
The farmer's daughter expressly promotes the support of farmers ("...otherwise one day we'll eat chipboard made of tofu!") and sings the praises of conserving resources, which has of course always been the top principle in her family.
“I look at your smiling faces”
A few horror stories from distant Wokistan, where “mothers are no longer up to date” and Santa Clauses have to be diverse, should not be missing - to the amusement of the ten thousand - before at the end, after a good ninety minutes without a break, under the hard shell the soft core comes to light.
“I look at your smiling faces – so nice!” says Monika Gruber: “Thank you for 20 years, from the bottom of my heart!” So that’s it?
What a pity.
And actually hard to believe.