"Pampastic" - the new weird secondary school musical
Created: 05/25/2022, 16:00
By: Fabian Holzner
A musical on the escape balconies of the Realschule Taufkirchen presents math teacher, composer and director Michael Röhrl (green T-shirt) with his young actors.
You filled the piece with life, wit and emotions.
Teacher and theater maker Michael Röhrl on his actors © Fabian Holzner
The musical elective course at the Realschule Taufkirchen presents “Pampastic”.
The premiere is on Friday, May 27th.
Taufkirchen
– A house without toilets makes the residents come up with absurd suggestions and leads to catastrophic implementation.
That is the basic idea of the musical "Pampastic", which premieres at the Realschule Taufkirchen this weekend.
"Starving.
They should all starve.
Without food, there are no confused ideas and, above all, no excretions,” the play says – but that is no way out of the protagonists’ plight.
As before the pandemic, every scene and every note comes from the pen of mathematics teacher Michael Röhrl, who is known for his crazy pieces.
"But you filled it with life, wit and emotions," he addressed the fourteen-strong ensemble of actors during one of the last rehearsals on the south facade of the Realschule building.
There, on the escape balconies, three levels are staged: the scenery is vertical, the plot is at an angle.
Because "Pampastic" is a made-up word from Pampers, meaning diapers, and Fantastic.
This is how the final solution for a chain of wrong decisions is praised, which begins in a multi-storey apartment building where the toilets have been forgotten.
The time in the play stretches over many years, at first the characters go to school together, then they go their separate ways and a few of them become "doers".
“Doers are people who have made something of themselves, or people who only seem to have succeeded.
The latter are often professionals in their specialist field and cleverly cover up the fact that they have no idea about anything else,” explains Röhrl.
Such doers tackle the problem of the toilet-less apartment building, stupid ideas are born, followed by even stupider ones.
Pails that have to be emptied annoy the pool owners on the ground floor, so the makers immediately come up with an “improvement”: a small toilet on the top floor, but without a drainpipe.
The reaction of the residents: resignation.
But the outhouse then falls victim to a revolt for completely different reasons and the time for “Pampastic” has come.
The diapers are not difficult to interpret as a symbol for the robbery of independence, as they are only necessary at the very beginning and perhaps at the end of life.
It is clear in which direction the insane regulation mania in the musical is aimed, and diaper softly neither measures nor decision-makers are settled.
"What people in higher positions say doesn't always have to be the smartest thing in the world," said actress Lilli Babel at the rehearsal.
One of her fellow singers, Siana Dibania, also says: "I don't care about the intention of the piece.
I'm happy to be able to do something with my friends again."
The voluntary music and theater project has suffered from the pandemic like hardly any other area.
The result after two years without a performance: There is a gap in the choice course, a small hard core has survived, the rest dare to get into the front row without slow introduction to the musical tradition.
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“In the past there were almost 60 participants, now, with the fourth musical in Taufkirchen, we are around 35 people,” says Röhrl.
The big band and the school band, which perform his compositions live, were partly filled with former students.
The respectful interaction between teachers and students shows that his projects are also about discovering and extracting talents outside of maths lessons.
Even before the premiere, Röhrl thanked his colleagues from the music and art departments, who were actively involved.
Since the spectators of the open-air musical are allowed to sit on the terraced slope in front of the south facade, they should bring insulating mats or picnic blankets.
Admission is free, donations welcome.
Performances of "Pampastic" are Friday, May 27 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, May 19 at 6 p.m.
Seats can be reserved at www.pampastic.de.
