Jana Herrmann with a solo that shakes you up

Created: 11/29/2022, 10:00 am

Strong performance: actress Jana Herrmann in the evangelical parish hall.

© Church

The actress Jana Herrmann from Weilheim impressed with a solo piece about a young alcoholic at performances in Schongau and Weilheim.

Schongau/Weilheim

– A “warm, blue cloud of vodka”: It gives 17-year-old Friederike support when she fills herself with alcohol in the park instead of sitting in school.

"You drink.

This helps.

Suddenly everything is easy.

The next day you are at the bottom.

You need more stuff to save yourself from total collapse.”

This is how the protagonist sums up her situation at the beginning of the hour-long solo piece, which Caren Pfeil wrote based on the children's book Bis ans Limit by Elisabeth Zöllner and Brigitte Kolloch.

And then review how it could have come to this.

"Wanted child.

only child.

child of separation

stress child!”

Perfect sense of timing and pause

However, the young woman does not limit herself to the laconic listing of the stages of her life, but instead presents the audience with exemplary situations.

Quarrel between parents: hateful atmosphere.

Mother's departure: leaving behind a desperate and perplexed daughter.

Everyday life alone with the father: Attempts to communicate fail.

Jana Herrmann hints at all of these roles, speaks all the dialogues alone – and with the intensity of her portrayal, she is able to bring everything to life in front of the viewer's inner eye.

She has the perfect sense of timing and the courage to take an exciting break.

On the empty stage, she only has a chair and the changing light as a design aid.

It comes, as it must

“When does being alone turn into loneliness?” Friederike asks her imaginary and real audience.

"During puberty, of course." Both parents always put work ahead of family life, but the girl needed support in times of internal and external upheaval.

She is now looking for that in a dubious clique of friends (“Everything better than being alone”) – and alcohol.

"I need this now!

But I can stop at any time..."

The audience knows that she is lying to herself, and she probably does too. Because there are excesses: attacking a kiosk ("We need alcohol! We need money!"), arrest by the police, binge drinking in the club and waking up in the Hospital.

The father drags her to a counseling center: "If you want it, then, but only then, I can help you," she hears there.

Attempted withdrawal: "Trembling, sweating, throwing up..." Friederike gets support from Sunny, a fellow patient.

“Sunny was totally broken.

She's almost there.

But now she is dead.”

Daughter of the Schongau pastor Jost Herrmann

At the end of the play, Friederike moves into a group home and goes back to school.

Now she can see that her parents used to send signals that she didn't understand or didn't want to understand.

But there is no ultimately unbelievable happy ending.

"I'm an alcoholic.

I'll never drink a drop again.

I don't know if I can do it” – these are the closing words of the piece.

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Jana Herrmann, who after graduating from high school in Weilheim completed acting training at the Athanor Academy for Performing Arts in Passau and currently lives as a freelance actress in Hamburg, is rightly celebrated enthusiastically by the audience in the Evangelical community center for her impressive performance - after all, she is the Daughter of the evangelical Schongau pastor Jost Herrmann.

In the subsequent conversation, the 25-year-old and director Otto Novoa answered questions from the viewers.

The production is actually aimed at school classes.

However, there was consensus in the lively discussion that it not only stimulates conversations between students and teachers, but can also promote understanding between parents and children.

SABINE CLOSER

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