If you kiss a frog, he becomes a prince. If you throw it against the wall, the same thing happens. This is how the Brothers Grimm wrote it down in “Froschkönig”. But here, at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, Princess Susie doesn’t want a prince. Princes are boring, she knows them from school. She wants to keep the frog and be happy with him, with the one who is different. And since Susie is played by Titilayo Adebayo, she gets her way too. Adebayo is defiant, glorious, black.
The weeks before Christmas are a happy time for the theater. Because many houses have what is known as the Christmas fairy tale. This usually has little to do with Christmas, but it is still called that, because the more apt name “children’s piece” is too weak for these often opulent events – a children’s piece could be something small, cute, during the year, but that’s what it’s all about not here. This is about big things.
In Basel you can currently see the “Robber Hotzenplotz”, staged by Antú Romero Nunes and Jörg Pohl, both of whom are in the artistic management team of the house. “Wickie and the strong men” will be shown at the Schauspiel Frankfurt, staged by Robert Gerloff as a musical revue with a real Viking ship. In Bern they play “Emil und die Detektiven” and relocate Erich Kästner’s language with a lot of music in a slightly dystopian, but also motley world of the future. And also the forefather of all secular Christmas stories, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” about the curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge, who is haunted by ghosts and thereby purified, could be experienced if it weren’t for Corona. The production at the Dresden Theater has been a hit since 2002, lovingly old-fashioned and equipped with music by Purcell, John Dowland, Vivaldi and old English Christmas carols.
Many actors really want to act in a Christmas fairy tale, because that’s where the best audience is
There are actors who absolutely want to be part of the Christmas fairy tale, even though the festive season is raining for them, and it is often played on the 24th and right again on the 26th, often in double performances. But they want to be there because the Christmas fairy tales are productions in high spirits, because they really want to play, not groaning under a concept. And because children are the best audience. Children always react, children are attentive, children are anarchy. And if someone on stage doesn’t know what to do next, he can simply ask the audience. That knows. The knowledge of Kästner or the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm is enormous. Nicolas Stemann thinks that there are canonical material for children, just like the classics for subscribers. “Children have an incredible need for stories.”
The Christmas fairy tale in tune with the times: In “King of the Frogs” by Nicolas Stemann, cell phones play an important role, and people woke up.
(Photo: James Bantone)
Stemann, co-director in Zurich, has, like the Basler, made the Christmas fairy tale a top priority. For him this is part of the city theater. So he does it himself, like the “Frog King” now. Last year he directed “Snow White”, of which there was even an adult version. But the main difference was actually just the beginning, he says in retrospect. In the mornings you almost only have children in there, in the afternoons it is mixed, and in the evenings it is mostly adults. He finds the afternoon performances the most exciting. When the Munich Residenztheater, under the direction of Martin Kušej, brought out a Christmas fairy tale in Cinemascope almost every year, adults borrowed foreign children to have an excuse to watch Robert Gerloff’s “Robin Hood” anarchy or the “Odyssey of Odysseus”, where you could compare what you saw with your own memory of Gustav Schwab’s “The most beautiful sagas of classical antiquity”.
Stemann’s fabulous version of “King of the Frogs” is paradigmatic in many ways. The original reason is the Grimm fairy tale, but he continued to write it, making it permeable to the children’s reality. When he stages texts by Jelinek, the process is essentially similar, only the audience is older and the events are not as turbulent. Cell phones now play an important role, the princess has two fathers, Kurt and Karl, one of whom wants to be an artist, the other is a real estate speculator. Hansel and Gretel also appear, very disheveled and fully woke, mocking the “lookism” of old fairy tales – for example that the princess has to be beautiful and is only judged by her appearance. Stemann installs this mischievously, as well as other allusions that only adults understand. But: “Children are used to not understanding something. Adults get stressful, children know that at some point they will get it.” Before the premiere there were performances with professional test audiences. “I was amazed at what is possible.”
Important parameters: It has to be colorful, music is indispensable, preferably live, the “Frosch” band can do glam rock, prog rock, R’n’B and the bolero. Equally indispensable: the absence of pedagogy. “It doesn’t even have to be about something. It’s important to generate energy, to be fun.” Uncovering the foundation of theater acting. And: never disturb, that’s forbidden.
In the play, the frog is eerily sad at first because it crouches lonely in the well. He sings a song. Stemann’s three-year-old son sang it to himself in daycare. Sad, scary. The teachers looked horrified.