Who would have thought that you could also sing “Socket Wrench” to the tune of “Guantanamera”? Sarah Mieth demonstrates it to the audience in the role of caretaker Kremski during the Vollmond Theater’s performance of the play “Sturm hat Drang”. It’s not the only moment in which you have to laugh heartily – even though the comedy, which incidentally has nothing to do with the literary era of Sturm und Drang, has a serious theme. Because Tobias Sturm has an urge to urinate and wants to satisfy his need in a KaDeWe toilet. However, even in the anteroom, other people keep getting in the way.
Before the audience can sympathize with Tobias Sturm, the theater group shows the play “Martina” in their current performance, which leaves you thinking. What both pieces have in common is the gender theme. The premiere is on Thursday, March 19th, at Spitalhof Leonberg.
Vollmond-Theater Leonberg shows how Hans becomes Martina
In “Martina,” the unemployed actor Hans Marten transforms into a woman named Martina Hansen. So he can get the only available role of a policewoman in the theater – because he wants to earn money again. He plays the female role so well that he was even nominated for an award. When he comes out, colleagues in particular feel betrayed by him and see it as a breach of trust that he has “played” something to them. And so the question arises: Is it reprehensible or not that people dress up to get work? The director Till Cuttingbach says: “The piece deliberately has an open ending.”
In “Sturm und Drang” Tobias Sturm struggles with which of the three toilet doors he should open in his emergency: the one with the symbol for men, the one with the symbol for women or the third with an indefinable, perhaps diverse symbol. This begs the question: Do we have to think so much about gender issues? Ultimately, Sturm’s indecision prolongs his torment.
In addition to the gender issue, there are two other topics in “Sturm hat Drang” that make you think. Martina Wolf plays the influencer Sandy Shiny shrill and over-the-top, which makes it more than clear how questionable the new media is. Adel Hess as the very old Ottilie von Gnadenberg once again reminisces about Nazi times.
Daniel Messerschmidt can be seen in the eponymous roles. He and all the other actors are convincing with their performances and the different roles they take on in the two plays. Doris Fuchs embodies Erna Schröder, the resolute cleaning lady in the toilet lobby, with heart and Berlin snout, as well as the insensitive theater director Alice. In “Martina,” Tobias Kegler not only plays Hans Marten’s friend and roommate, who stands by his friend but doesn’t like what he’s doing, and the influencer Markus, who falls in love with Martina. As the old hippie Hacki, he knows how to convey to Tobias Sturm, eloquently and visually, what just happened to him in the toilet. Franziska Kleiner manages to present a colorless “personality” as actress Susanne and Hans Marten’s ex-wife, while as acting coach Colette Dupont in “Sturm hat Drang” she becomes a self-confident, exaggerated artist who loves the theatrical.
The Vollmond Theater shows “Martina” and “Sturm hat Drang” in the Spitalhof
The Vollmondtheater will perform “Martina” and “Sturm hat Drang” on March 19th, 20th and 21st at 7:30 p.m. and on March 22nd at 6 p.m. in the Theater im Spitalhof in Leonberg.
