When can you see guys growing up on stage? Especially since those who liked to play poop sausages well into their fifties, joked about the jams of seeds and, with the most terrible 80s wigs and hairbrushes in their breast pockets, gave the eternal moped gear. Heinz Strunk, Rocko Schamoni and Jacques Palminger, the imperial administrators of the bad acting in the German-speaking theater, have successfully brought the processing of a hideous youth through adolescence refusal for years and with flute to the stages of the Hamburg State Theaters – under the band name Studio Braun and in collective direction.
Her oeuvre about the ridiculous man who feels called to great things (and sometimes ends up in the horrible), meanwhile includes shallow occupations with the Kremlin aviator Rust, the woman murderer Honka and their own music start rooms in the form of the fictional electro-pop trio Fractus. The next chapter on male self-overestimation, in which tragedy and comedy are musically intertwined, follows the frenzied stage angel for justice and vengeance: Michael Kohlhaas. However, in reincarnation as Charles Bronson, and not in Brandenburg, but New York.
With all the irony: “Coolhaze” is absolutely free of hangers and staged with the will to impress
Pathos and shock, which Kleist constantly increases in his story of the deceived horse dealer who becomes the torchbearer of vigilante justice, naturally have no entry in Studio Braun’s textbook. The bouncer against this unreasonable outrage is in “Coolhaze”, which has now premiered at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus, as always the irony. The horses are bicycles in chopper disguise, the stage by Stéphane Laimé is a Potemkin downtown made of spinning brownstones with absurd nostalgia advertising, for example for “Fish Steak, Fish Cake”. And the assembled “Revenge” poses of red-sighted men in Hollywood cinema are mocked with overemphasis and slow motion in their embarrassment.
As far as everything as usual. But the difference to earlier productions, which Studio Braun saved from looking too professional with deliberately embarrassing interruptions, is striking: “Coolhaze” is staged with absolutely no hangover in rhythm, tempo, flow and composition and with the will to impress. A huge orchestra under the direction of Sebastian Hoffmann, who also composed most of the pieces, drives the two-hour evening with motifs from theme songs from popular US series of the sixties, seventies and eighties. Studio Braun’s self-portrayal as a singing bungler is limited to a groovy tormental rap about New York and Jacques Palminger’s role as a stinking, sad corpse maggot who philosophizes about the role of humans in the destruction of the ecosystem.
The “star” who thinks himself to be divine: Charly Hübner is allowed to wallow undisturbed and funny in the status of male infallibility in “Coolhaze”.
(Photo: Markus Scholz / dpa)
Above all, however, the narration of Kleist’s famous feud as a film shoot is a trick that suddenly develops an unknown complexity and dynamic from Studio Braun’s lofty level. Samuel Weiss as a Viennese director from Kassel who, as a megalomaniac asshole, believes he is making a “global success” with “Coolhaze”, who is half Celine Dion and half Leni Riefenstahl, delivers a brilliant show as a domineering cynic of the old school. He humiliates and insults his employees so perfectly as a vain authority that “revenge” is actually more the main theme of this caustic plot. Only Charly Hübner, his “star”, who considers himself divine, is also allowed to wallow undisturbed and funny in the status of male infallibility.
Especially in relation to his film wife, he lets the top smack hang out, but Ute Hannig as Ladybird Coolhaze knows how to get out of the various affairs with mockery, intrigue and piccolos. Everyone on stage collects laughter in this emasculation of the genre of revenge – like in a solid comedy. And that is exactly the difference to previous evenings with Studio Braun. The audience doesn’t laugh hard at expected embarrassments, but at real humor, good punchlines and actors who have mastered the timing of bursting stage comics – including Heinz Strunk as “Grandma” Coolhaze and Rocko Schamoni, who plays dumb rocker “Shaggy” in glam rock Outfit plays.
Enthusiasm for tough cops and the soft guys of irony education
What raises this production above the charming amateurism of earlier productions is the new courage to be serious about style. The choreographer Rica Blunck quotes “West Side Story”, the costume designer Dorle Bahlburg calls up the fashion world of “Kojak”, “Shaft” and “Starsky & Hutch”. And the animation artist Luis August Krawen develops a new visual cosmos from the graphic opening credits of old series, which perfectly fits the nostalgic enthusiasm for this epoch of tough cops with humor into the backdrop of soft fellows of the irony enlightenment.
Michael Kohlhaas’ famous motto, “Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus”, that is: “Justice should happen and the world perish”, as the much-quoted leitmotif of this rousing comedy ensures that the serious background of fanatical convictions, those in refusal to vaccinate -Milieu probably just getting closer, always staying present. If these people were as aware of their ridiculousness as the protagonists of this show, a lot would be gained in Kleist’s land.