“Annette, a heroine epic” at the Schauspiel Stuttgart. – Culture

If such a life had been invented, the public would have waved it off. Too constructed and one-sided. Annette was already crowing out socialist slogans at the age of five. At 15 she wants to become a terrorist – and from then on she goes through life with an outstretched fist. She saves Jewish children. She took a stand against the Nazis in the Résistance, against colonialism in Algeria and in between as a communist against the abuse of power by her comrades. A woman who fights on all fronts – including herself.

Schauspiel Stuttgart is now chasing through this insane biography of Anne Beaumanoir, who is by no means an invention of the author Anne Weber, but was born in Brittany in 1923. When Anne Weber met her by chance, she was so fascinated that she wanted to write down her story. In the meantime, her novel “Annette, a heroine epic” has conquered the theatres. Because Anne Beaumanoir, who was called Annette, may not have been a heroine, her life always provides material for a great stage drama.

In the production at the Stuttgart Schauspiel, three actresses now share this long life among themselves, as if so much resistance were too much for one alone. The director Dušan David Pařízek manages without props and costume changes, not even the huge cube made of wooden slats in the middle of the stage is used as a venue. It only serves as a projection surface for isolated historical photos and a delicate play of shadows.

In risky operations, Annette put her life at risk.

And yet this two-hour tour de force across Annette’s battlefields is dense and gripping. This is due to the tempo that this production sets, so that mom’s “little young communist” quickly becomes a stubborn girl who is “idle, inactive” looking forward to missions and heroic deeds. Beaumanoir studied medicine and became a professor of neurophysiology – and yet considered it her “duty and duty” to risk her life in risky missions. The price was high. Not only did she have to flee to Tunisia to escape prison. She also sacrificed her personal happiness. “The communists didn’t plan for love,” it says once in the play, when Annette says goodbye to her great love. It won’t be the only relationship to break up.

When Anne Weber received the German Book Prize for “Annette, a heroine epic” in 2020, the critics reacted with irritation because she chose the faded form of the epic and told the story of the freedom fighter in prose verse. Dušan David Pařízek has created a version of the text that leaves no doubt about the strength of Weber’s language. She not only impresses with her marksmanship, but also with a seductive irony, behind which violence, death and loss flash all the more painfully.

The scenes fly by almost exuberantly.

A strategy with which the Stuttgart production keeps the audience engaged. Inevitably, in this verbal ping-pong, awkward facts and political contexts have to be explained. Dušan David Pařízek serves these passages with playful freedom. Saxons are spoken here, Viennese spoken there, and then again Sarah Franke and Josephine Köhler have to adjust their voices in a funny way. The third Annette is Sylvana Krappatsch. She is extremely sovereign and shines in this well-acting women’s trio, which is complemented by Peter Fasching. He plays all male roles, but also provides the musical framework on the piano and electric guitar with subtle echoes of the Internationale or “Je t’aime”.

The scenes fly by almost in high spirits, but behind all this supposed ease, Annette’s fight for justice increasingly turns out to be a great tragedy. With chilling self-evidence, more and more grievances spring up and Annette becomes a lonely Sisyphus who can never reach his goal. Full of bitterness, she has to realize that the Algerian independence movement has only spawned new violence. She lost everything and even abandoned her family “for a sovereign state that mutated into a military regime within a short time”.

At the end, the walls of the huge wooden cube crashed onto the stage floor with a loud bang. The audience was warned in advance with a sign: “It’s going to be loud.” For Beaumanoir, however, life here was far from over. Since she was on the wanted list after fleeing France, she first moved to Geneva in 1965 to be closer to her children and was only able to return to France after an amnesty. In the spring, the failed heroine died at the age of 98.

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