The Glass Menagerie (Die Glasmenagerie)
by Tennessee Williams
"Is that the future we’ve mapped out for ourselves?"
German by Jörn van Dyck
Despite setbacks, disappointments and disputes, the Wingfield family clings to its wishes and hopes. Even though, or perhaps because Tom and Laura live with their mother Amanda in humble circumstances, they spend their lives dreaming. They dream of different lives, better lives, lives without having to work at a factory, of having time for art and of a world outside grim reality. Tom and Amanda’s father left years ago. Tom supports the family by working at a warehouse, but he longs to be a writer. While his mother Amanda waxes lyrical about her youth and lavishes maternal love on the rest of the family to excess, shy Laura devotes all her attention to a collection of fragile glass animals. This menagerie of strange figures gives her a feeling of security and helps her to forget reality. When Tom brings his colleague Jim home for dinner one day at his mother's request, Amanda's plan to matchmake Laura with Jim goes absurdly astray. This Tennessee Williams' play, which had its premiere in 1944, tells of how captivating dreams can remove fear from everyday life – but do not necessarily help withstand its pressures.
German by Jörn van Dyck
Despite setbacks, disappointments and disputes, the Wingfield family clings to its wishes and hopes. Even though, or perhaps because Tom and Laura live with their mother Amanda in humble circumstances, they spend their lives dreaming. They dream of different lives, better lives, lives without having to work at a factory, of having time for art and of a world outside grim reality. Tom and Amanda’s father left years ago. Tom supports the family by working at a warehouse, but he longs to be a writer. While his mother Amanda waxes lyrical about her youth and lavishes maternal love on the rest of the family to excess, shy Laura devotes all her attention to a collection of fragile glass animals. This menagerie of strange figures gives her a feeling of security and helps her to forget reality. When Tom brings his colleague Jim home for dinner one day at his mother's request, Amanda's plan to matchmake Laura with Jim goes absurdly astray. This Tennessee Williams' play, which had its premiere in 1944, tells of how captivating dreams can remove fear from everyday life – but do not necessarily help withstand its pressures.
Director Stephan Kimmig
Set Katja Haß
Costumes Anja Rabes
Music Michael Verhovec
Robert Grauel
Dramaturgy Ulrich Beck
Premiere December 16, 2016
Anja SchneiderAmanda Wingfield
Linn ReusseLaura Wingfield
Marcel KohlerTom Wingfield
Holger StockhausJim O’Connor
Amanda Wingfield
Laura Wingfield
Tom Wingfield
Jim O’Connor
Music in the play:
Wolfie – Kidnapped By Neptune
Scout Niblett
2005
Rollercoater Girl
L’Aupaire
2014
Sleep Song
Interpret: Let’s Eat Grandma
2016
Rapunzel
Let’s Eat Grandma
2016
Ceiling Gazing
Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle
2013
I Feel Love
Donna Summer
1977
Relax
Franckie Goes to Hollywood
1983
Pass This On
The Knife
2003
Wolfie – Kidnapped By Neptune
Scout Niblett
2005
Rollercoater Girl
L’Aupaire
2014
Sleep Song
Interpret: Let’s Eat Grandma
2016
Rapunzel
Let’s Eat Grandma
2016
Ceiling Gazing
Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle
2013
I Feel Love
Donna Summer
1977
Relax
Franckie Goes to Hollywood
1983
Pass This On
The Knife
2003
What's on
With English surtitles
Invited to the 48th Mülheimer Theatertage
Specification of the Person (Angabe der Person)
Director: Jossi Wieler
Follow-up discussion with Contemporary Art Alliance - Saal
Deutsches Theater
19.30 - 21.50
19.00 Introduction – Saal
sold out
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
WORLD PREMIERE
Forever Yin Forever Young
A Funny van Dannen Evening
Director: Tom Kühnel and Jürgen Kuttner
Aftershow party with DJ Linda Pöppel – Bar
Kammerspiele
20.00 - 22.30
sold out
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
Anja Schneider (former actress with Armin Petras at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin and the Schauspiel Stuttgart, now in the DT ensemble) is a show in herself: a high-speed steamroller, a pain in the neck, and forever-young, constantly babbling, pushy blonde. Childish, funny, flirtatious to the point of overkill – or even to the point of suicide – yet still permeable to the pain, worry and loneliness of her character.
The outsider Laura – a girl with thick glasses, baggy clothes and the same aura of innocence that Björk shows in Lars von Trier’s movie ''Dancer in the Dark'' – has her own seat by a sewing machine on the right by the wall. When she is alone, she puts on a record from Papa’s collection (the well-selected songs are from Kimmig’s own playlist) and then she dances. And how she dances! In a wonderfully awkward, erotic and eccentric way, and so utterly lost in herself that Linn Reusse gets applause for the scene. It’s fascinating throughout to watch how she plays Laura – how she literally does her own thing. [...]
Things take an almost lowbrow turn into brash slapstick after the interval, when Tom brings home his work mate Jim O'Connor as a possible groom for Laura. The mother’s excitement is wonderful, as she throws her arms around the man’s neck in her ridiculous young girl's get-up. And there is tender comedy as Laura gradually lets go of her shyness and awkwardness in Jim’s presence. Holger Stockhaus is a sweet-talking stud of the first degree, a guy with a contagious confidence in the future and a terrific entertainer to boot. The way in which he jams an entire jazz concert for Laura in pantomimish, a-capella style is enough to make you go weak at the knees. The director holds back on interpretations, updates and explanations. Rather, he focuses on atmosphere, moods and vibrations – and his formidable acting quartet, who make a spectacular evening of theatre out of this unspectacular, at times even desolate, family drama. [...]
Anja Schneider (former actress with Armin Petras at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin and the Schauspiel Stuttgart, now in the DT ensemble) is a show in herself: a high-speed steamroller, a pain in the neck, and forever-young, constantly babbling, pushy blonde. Childish, funny, flirtatious to the point of overkill – or even to the point of suicide – yet still permeable to the pain, worry and loneliness of her character.
The outsider Laura – a girl with thick glasses, baggy clothes and the same aura of innocence that Björk shows in Lars von Trier’s movie ''Dancer in the Dark'' – has her own seat by a sewing machine on the right by the wall. When she is alone, she puts on a record from Papa’s collection (the well-selected songs are from Kimmig’s own playlist) and then she dances. And how she dances! In a wonderfully awkward, erotic and eccentric way, and so utterly lost in herself that Linn Reusse gets applause for the scene. It’s fascinating throughout to watch how she plays Laura – how she literally does her own thing. [...]
Things take an almost lowbrow turn into brash slapstick after the interval, when Tom brings home his work mate Jim O'Connor as a possible groom for Laura. The mother’s excitement is wonderful, as she throws her arms around the man’s neck in her ridiculous young girl's get-up. And there is tender comedy as Laura gradually lets go of her shyness and awkwardness in Jim’s presence. Holger Stockhaus is a sweet-talking stud of the first degree, a guy with a contagious confidence in the future and a terrific entertainer to boot. The way in which he jams an entire jazz concert for Laura in pantomimish, a-capella style is enough to make you go weak at the knees.
[...]
What you see in this show is a true celebration of acting, in which the four actors are allowed to give everything they’ve got. The slapstick is entertaining, the punchlines punch, the audience is touched at the right moment – a feeling we mostly know from the cinema – while the acting carries a sense of metaphor that stirs emotions, and it all takes place in its original setting. Why? Because the director has the courage to let the tenderness of the play be tender – and the sadness sad. With acting like this, when sparks like these fly, it’s worth paying full attention. Then you want to watch constantly as the stage becomes the world: the way a few words are turned into big dreams and empty gazes become accusations. Let your friends assure you on the way home that reality is quite different these days – it’s much too complicated to be reflected in these little glass animals. Let them say that the metaphors are too soft, the sentences too easy – they haven’t understood a thing. Because this is not about reality in the empirical sense. The play is set in the sphere of memory; it is emotional, not realistic, as the narrator Tom says at the beginning. And in doing so, he asks the audience to set their inner clocks, their heartbeats to a different, more sensitive rhythm!
[...]
What you see in this show is a true celebration of acting, in which the four actors are allowed to give everything they’ve got. The slapstick is entertaining, the punchlines punch, the audience is touched at the right moment – a feeling we mostly know from the cinema – while the acting carries a sense of metaphor that stirs emotions, and it all takes place in its original setting. Why? Because the director has the courage to let the tenderness of the play be tender – and the sadness sad.