Mein ziemlich seltsamer Freund Walter
Credits
Text Sibylle Berg
Direction Katharina Brankatschk
Set & Costumes Nicolaus-Johannes Heyse
Dramaturgy Ralf Meyer
Translation & Supertitels Anna Galt
With Benito Bause, Harald Höbinger, Sophia Platz, Paul Simon
Age 8 years and older
Duration 80 minutes
Time & Location
- 04/25/17 6:30 pm
SOPHIENSÆLE / Kantine
accessible - 04/29/17 3:00 pm
SOPHIENSÆLE / Kantine
accessible - 04/29/17 6:00 pm
SOPHIENSÆLE / Kantine
accessible
Lisa is interested in a whole lot of things, but no one is interested in her. At night, she secretly reads books about astrophysics and searches outer space for aliens. At school, Lisa sits all by herself. She is teased and bullied. And ever since her parents lost their jobs, they just move from their bed to the sofa and back again. No, Lisa is definitely not what one would call a happy child. Until a spaceship lands behind her apartment complex one night and Lisa meets the alien Klakalnamanazdta, who she simply calls Walter. Walter becomes Lisa’s friend, teaches her kung fu and helps her to clear up a lot of things in her life.
Mein ziemlich seltsamer Freund Walter examines the small, decisive steps that are necessary to stand on one’s own two feet in the world and how we sometimes need a whole lot of help in order to make them. In Katharina Brankatschk‘s production of this fairy-tale-like story of a fleeting friendship, the actors slide, run and perform gymnastic on multiple steep levels, they appear and disappear as well as transform in the space of seconds. Thanks to this physical layer of slapstick, the deeply sad starting point is lent a lightness which generates surprisingly funny situations.
Katharina Brankatschk was born in 1981 in Bautzen, grew up in Leipzig and studied acting at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. She jointed Theater Magdeburg in 2007 as a member of the ensemble and was awarded the prize for young talent by the Friends of Theater Magdeburg Society. She became a resident director at Junges Theater Göttingen in 2011. She has been the resident director at Thalia Theater Halle since 2013.
Sibylle Berg is one of the most important contemporary writers and playwrights in the German-speaking world and her works have been translated into more than 30 different languages. Her first play for children came about as a commission from the Kunststiftung NRW (Arts Foundation for North Rhine-Westphalia) on the occasion of its 25th anniversary in 2014.
Vote
A very talented girl living in precarious circumstances is bullied at school as well as on the way to school – until a virtually all-powerful friend appears, regardless of whether he is real or imagined, and empowers the poor child to defend herself and cope with day-to-day life. It is almost like a fairy tale for finding your courage.
This does not have to be a bad thing. Quite to the contrary when it is done as well as it is by Thalia Theater Halle. Let’s start with the text and give a great big thank you to Consol Theater Gelsenkirchen who commissioned Sibylle Berg to write a play for young audiences for the first time. This established author has written a wonderfully light yet never superficial script that works on a variety of different levels and takes a position: from the perspective of the child, she shows what optimism and a zest for life can bring. On a system-critical level, she lampoons the gaffes and excesses of our society, especially the absurdity of capitalism. And she encounters these people with sympathy (as well as a friendly and inviting criticism), people who have not been heard for far too long a time in this society. Those who feel that they are losers within the system. It is certainly no coincidence that this piece has been produced in Halle after its premiere in Gelsenkirchen.
All of this content, however, is not at the foreground of the production; instead, it provides a resonance and gives depth to the comedic performance. After all, Mein ziemlich seltsamer Freund Walter is first and foremost a Halle production: a well-made comedy with depth that reacts to its social and societal environment. It is performed by wonderful actors, especially at the center of the production. It is refreshing how naturally Sophia Platz (a student at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Academy for Music and Theater in Leipzig) connects with the audience as Lisa without forced chumminess, how she playfully switches between the character and narrator levels and, together with Harald Höbinger as Walter, develops the decidedly tragic story into an impossible friendship.
Christian Schönfelder