When you open your festival with a three-hour stream-of-consciousness deluge of text, tragedy, and water, what can possibly follow? The Theatertreffen’s answer: Bring in its opposite. Der Biberpelz (The Beaver Coat), the second invited production in the program, is an 80-minute comedy directed by the darling of this year’s Theatertreffen, the twice–invited Herbert Fritsch. But what is the thesis of this Jelinek/Beier antithesis?

Herbert Fritsch makes no secret of his primary motivation as a director: During the Theatertreffen press conference, in interviews with Theater heute, our bloggers, and more, he is fond of saying that directing, for him, is about the fun. It is another form of playing — in that special way that the German word for „to play,“ spielen, also means „to act.“ Fritsch’s Der Biberpelz, invited to this year’s Theatertreffen from the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin, is one big Spiel.

The ensemble of Der Biberpelz. Foto: Silke Winkler

A game would be nothing without its players, and it is indeed the cast of Der Biberpelz that deserves first mention. The Wolff family (Stéphane Maeder’s rock-dumb father Julius, Isa Weiß and Sonja Isemer’s bickering swindlers-in-training Leontine and Adelheid, and Brigitte Peters‘ masterminding matriarch Mother Wolffen), their cohorts and antagonists form an ensemble tumbling over itself to top its own impressive intensity, physicality, and speed. With their grotesque grimaces and colorful costumes, the characters might be the rejects of any number of cult movies (where an impressive ensemble performance is also, as a rule, the number one draw). But my favorite character in the play is one that gets no credit in the cast list: the wall. (mehr …)