#German theatre

[sarielsnowings]

“The Neues Schauspiel shall not die” 🎭

Our local independent theatre is on the verge of closing down, so I made a little poster to bring awareness to the issue.

They’re collecting signatures to bring to the city council until March 2024. Would appreciate your support! Anyone can sign, even if you don’t live in Germany.

Sign the petition here.

Also, for once, feel free to repost this, print this, do whatever you’d like with it. I made it free to use, as long as it has the QR code to the petition.

[peterlorrefanpage]

Peter Lorre seated next to Lotte Lenya during a rehearsal for the play 'Eine Schnur geht durch das Zimmer', directed by Francesco von Mendelssohn (standing). November 25, 1930.

[potatotalksculture]

About yesterday…

“The Inheritance” at Berliner Theatertreffen

[Spoilers for the drama „The Inheritance” ahead] + [I am going to edit this post as I keep remembering different things that were important to me.]

Yesterday I’ve spent over seven hours in a theatre to watch the German interpretation of “The Inheritance” by Matthew Lopez. And I might write a long and exhausting essay about it one day, but first some takes to take them off my mind:

This book is a masterpiece. Everyone! Go read it.

The interpretation was good because it left the text a lot of space to speak for itself. The actors embodies the characters well (I could die for M. Goldberg as Morgan) and let the words carry the emotions through them.

The German audience still can’t deal with emotional outburst. Especially if those are emotional outbursts of gay men. They read it as being played for laughs. (Some slightly older lady got a giggles attack she couldn’t control after Henry proposed to Eric. As Henry went down on his knee to make the proposal look even more serious, she bursted with laughter.) (A lot of voices in the foyer was complaining about this play not telling any story. W? T? F?)

On the other hand it was a wonderful evening, spent with a group of friends. None of them giggled during the performance.

What has rubbed me the wrong one and what at least one of the critics of the Munich performance points out is the lack of women on the stage. Because, you know, representation. BUT the story was written by a man for other men about their inheritance, also about love and friendship among them. I assume it’s not unusual for a gay friend group to have close to none female friends that would belong to the core group. This is for the realists among the critics. For the dramaturges among them: This play is about the male gay community. This is not about the lesbians caring for men suffering from an HIV infection. Their mothers and grandmothers are mentioned throughout the story. And maybe we should accept that this is it? This is the world of the characters of the play. They don’t have any relationship with women that would be relevant to this story or are relevant enough to be showed instead of told.

The German reviewers often compare the play to a “sitcom” and a “soap opera”. I do not agree.

[placeofwonder]

lately: enjoyed my beautiful town in the sun and reviewed two plays for the student magazine, which is a great outlet for the part of my brain that wishes I was still studying humanities

[calliopeslyre]

The German musical scene is so funny, because we got like 5 (five) dudes who have all played the same roles plus a bunch of Dutch women

[cethvalier]

Pia Douwes in costume as Elisabeth in Elisabeth das Musical, 1992

[illustratus]

Siegfried Fighting with the Dragon by Achille Beltrame

[kustavglimt]

Karl Friedrich Schinkel: stage design for The Magic Flute (1847-49)

[sarielsnowings]

“The modern gentleman is, above all, a self-made man” 🌹

It’s my take on Marlowe Lune’s DTIYS!

Yes I have a million other things to work on at the moment, but when I saw Marlowe’s “Modern Gentlemen” illustration and the wonderful concept behind it I couldn’t help myself. I had to take a stab at it. So I went at it from my own perspective, deriving inspiration from some of my favourite things from the beginning of the XX century (1920s-30s movie posters, ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, German expressionist cinema, Leyendecker’s illustrations and William Morris’ botanical decorations among them) to create a poster/magazine cover for a supposed upcoming ballet, featuring its transmasc lead dancer as the focus of the piece.

This was challenging to put together but I’m overall very pleased with the results, and I can’t wait to hear what you all think about it!

Also, here’s a secret, alternate version with a light background and the original artwork by Marlowe:

[peterlorrefanpage]

Peter Lorre and Carola Neher in the premiere of "Tales from the Vienna Woods" (Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald), Deutsches Theater, Berlin, November 1931.

Imagine being there when it was new - happening - live.

Here's a pulled-back shot:

And now with a newspaper!

Another scene! Here Peter is with Lucie Höflich:

He's got a look of Polo about him mixed with Louis "The Dope" and Editor Stix. That innocent baby face and open grin, but I'm not so sure about those eyes... *sizzle*

Previous post about the same play

[saltavenegar]

Had Rebecca on the mind since hearing about it opening in London. I need plane tickets IMMEDIATELY

[christianfriedelfan]

Bringing back this iconic Insta Story

[calliopeslyre]

Uwe Kröger literally had to switch musicals to ruin Rudolf's life a second time, and if that's not dedication I don't know what is!

[cethvalier]

Pia Douwes and Viktor Gernot in Elisabeth das Musical, ~1992

found a couple old fan blogs with tons of old photos, so im slowly but surely combing through and reuploading a few i've never seen before! internet archive doesnt want to cooperate with me though so... we'll see how it goes. photo quality isnt gonna be great either unless i can find some better workarounds for needing to use a janky flash player browser in order to view the photos

[illustratus]

Walhalla by Hermann Burghart

Design for the 1878 staging of "Das Rheingold" by Richard Wagner