The Hague playwright Reinhard Seibold and the sad smiler

Created: 09/30/2022, 19:00

By: Andrea Beschorner

Contemplative and touching: In his novel "The Sad Smile" Reinhold Seibold left the path of the playwright.

© Beschorner

Reinhard Seibold from Haag has published his second novel.

With "The Sad Smile" he leaves the humorous path of the playwright and shows that he can also be serious.

Haag –

He likes the extraordinary.

What Reinhard Seibold brings to the stage or to paper stands out from the crowd.

He is particularly good at the enigmatic, often a bit crude humour.

But the man who writes plays and puts them on the stage, the Hague, who has made a name for himself far beyond the Hague with his ambiguous allusions at the strong beer festivals and his knack for making people laugh, can also be different.

He can be sad, thoughtful and touching.

He provides proof of this with his novel “The Sad Smile”.

Away from Bavarian humor.

Towards a protagonist who sometimes keeps the reader at a distance, sometimes lets him get very close to give him a look deep into his abysmal sad soul.

Protagonist hides his feelings behind the innate smile

When reading Seibold's latest work, one feels reminded of Forest Gump, the narrative style in short sentences is concise, haunting.

Those who have read in can immerse themselves in the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, who has not been spared by fate, the boy who has suffered so much injustice and who has hidden his true feelings behind a natural smile for the rest of his life.

Seibold came up with the idea because he has always been asked very regularly to "always look so grumpy", even though he isn't at all.

"That's just my Gschau, I can't help it," he explains and smiles.

But how would it feel the other way around?

The question occupied him - and the idea for the sad smiler was born.

Seibold loves comedy

After the 25 plays that Reinhard Seibold has written and staged to date - most of which primarily made people laugh, but often also made them think - he has now lived up to a different claim with this book : touching people.

In his own estimation, the comedy “somehow suits him more”, as he says.

He doesn't have any concrete role models either as a novelist or as a playwright - although he personally is a big fan of Austrian cabaret artists, especially Josef Hader.

This second novel shows that seriousness suits him just as much.

He got a taste for writing books with his debut work "Presssack und Olive", he says.

Because: "In a novel I'm not tied to space and time, I don't have to orient myself to a stage set - I can change place and time, look back." And he does that in "The Sad Smile".

About the history of the beginnings of airport construction.

On the resettlement of the Franzheimer, on what that did to the people back then, in which conflict the farmers suddenly found themselves.

And so the book is not only dedicated to his children and grandchildren, for whom he wanted to write "how we grew up", but also "to the people of Franzheim who had to sacrifice their homeland for Munich Airport".

Whether a third novel will follow remains to be seen

Whether there will be a next novel, Seibold does not know.

"You should never say never," he says.

But the "door-to-door cleaning" until you have found a publisher, the marketing afterwards - all of these are things that are not his thing at all.

And since he's used to success with his much-acclaimed plays, he just doesn't know yet "whether I want to do that to myself again".

That was also the reason why he gave up the music cabaret with "Amaivoi" two years ago.

"There are so many good people and groups in the cabaret sector, but not that many stages." It was not uncommon to write to 50 stages and get no answer from 48.

"That annoys me," he admits.

Haager Komödienbrettl brings "delicacy cuisine" to the stage

Now there's another play: "Schmankerlküche" is coming to the Hague Komödienbrettl stage - together with those "dedicated people with whom you can play just about anything, who do excellent work and who always make it, even those with their enthusiasm to infect those who are on stage for the first time”, praises Seibold “his” Komödienbrettl.

And there will be a lot to laugh about again – on December 31st and on January 6th, 8th, 13th and 15th.

Good to know

"The sad smiler" was published by Riccardi-Verlag.

ISBN: 978-3-98595-128-4