It was unusually bright and warm. Because the competition for the Passau executioner’s ax is usually associated with the dead of winter. But after the failure in 2020, the 38th edition of what is perhaps the most renowned young talent competition in the German cabaret scene had to be postponed from December to May in 2021. But the long wait was worth it, the six candidates for the three axes were seldom so at eye level. What together with the crunchy and up-to-date moderation of Urban Priol – winner of the executioner’s ax from 1986! – a thrilling evening for the audience, but gave the jury a lot of headaches. Presumably only nuances decided.
Michael Großschädl from Graz was the most likely to be out of the standings in the venerable Scharfrichterhaus. His overly long song about the difficulties Austrians and Germans have with the common language ended up being too well-behaved and old-fashioned. Eva Karl-Faltermeier, who was one of the favorites due to various previous awards, did not really have a good day. From the performance time, which was already short at a maximum of 20 minutes, she initially let far too much time pass with a humorless and pointless enumeration of the gloomy current world situation. Only slowly did she get going with the anxiety disorders triggered by her youth in the Upper Palatinate. Her finale with the hobby discovered by Corona, going to funerals (including the comparison with unpleasant wedding parties), would certainly have been worthy of an award.
The third, who went home without a hatchet, was due to a fundamental problem that always recurs in competitions. Amjad, who comes from the Münsterland region, is a flawless stand-up comedian oriented towards Anglo-Saxon formats. And an exceptionally good and funny one at that. His theme, so to speak, given by his Palestinian-Jordanian roots, is multicultural coexistence. But unlike so many ethno comedians, he goes about it in a completely relaxed manner and with a humanistic appeal. Seen in this way, more political and cabaret than some type cabaret, but still suspected by the jurors of missing the genre.
An AfD member and a muesli green meet at an esoteric fair…
So the little hatchet went to the German Sonja Pikart, who ended up in Vienna through her acting studies, who already brought along some advance praise such as the Austrian Cabaret Prize in the young talent category and was ahead of the audience in Passau. Some of her observations of the feminine zeitgeist may be overused and sometimes gross, but how she met an AfD woman with a green muesli at an esoteric fair and discovered amazing similarities while pottery was certainly the most up-to-date, systematic and surprising at night. It’s a matter of taste whether you prefer this variety or the skilful, bizarre and actually new type of music cabaret by Mainzer David Weber. In any case, the middle ax for the ironic, absurd excesses of the trivial in the music went to him.
The big thing was then reserved for something typically Austrian. In the tradition of many prominent compatriots, Benedikt Mitmannsgruber put an anti-hero from the Mühlviertel on the stage in a provocatively stoic manner. With virtuosity and without fear of breaking taboos, he played with clichés about the provinces. In the end, everyone in the room could probably live with the decision. And the executioner’s hatchet competition proved once again that there is no need to worry about young cabaret artists.