Favorites of the week: matches from the theater – culture

theater matches

In the long run, nothing remains of the theater but memories. If any. Theater is fleeting, it cannot be captured, it cannot be preserved. Except in the memory or in the heart, gladly supported by notes, souvenirs, tangible memorabilia. For example in the form of matches. This refers to matchboxes that you get in most theaters as a giveaway, designed in the look or with a slogan of the respective house.

A collection of such boxes, built up over years and decades, tells of a rich theatrical life. It evokes not only plays, seasons, festivals and logos, but entire eras. The somewhat worn copy from the Bochum theater with a radiant black heart on a red background is from the time when Leander Haußmann was artistic director there (1995 – 2000) and the much scolded Luftikus motto “Have fun!” spent. A real collector’s item. The black box with the stylized white circular saw blade is clearly from the Berlin Schaubühne. “Hush under the covers,” reads the slogan in white letters (from an old play by Yasmina Reza).

Chic when the ignition heads are the same color as the box, for example organic apple green as at the Stuttgart theater (inscription: “Headlights”/ “Light change”) or purple as in an older example from the Frankfurt theater (“My life is a festival”). Rarer are matchbooks with sticks that can be broken off, or noble extra-large editions such as those from Schauspiel Leipzig (“The break is a hole in time”). They are “little theater reminders,” says the director of the Munich Residenztheater, Andreas Beck, about the boxes. “Something to take away, hold onto in this transitory art.”

Certainly the most iconic matches are those from the Berlin Volksbühne from the Castorf era (1992 – 2017): real old wooden boxes with Bert Neumann’s famous Räuberrad logo on them in red, white or yellow. Legend! Supposedly these are the original boxes of theater matches. Only then, according to the Volksbühne, did other theaters follow suit with this brilliant marketing idea. But the Volksbühne, of all people, abolished it again. Under René Pollesch there are no more matches there. What a pity. They were a perennial favorite. Christine Dossel

Radio: Long night over the ALT

Carmen, anyway. The title role of Georges Bizet’s opera is often sung by mezzo-sopranos. But it is definitely a role for the alto voice, which otherwise tends to have the cruder, often malicious characters: “Witches, Whores, Old Women” is the name of Stefan Zednik’s three-hour “Long Night About the ALT” on Deutschlandfunk Kultur (Nacht zu Saturday, 12:05 a.m.) and Deutschlandfunk (Saturday, 11:05 p.m.; then in the audio library).

A homage to the marginalized and misjudged, to the unsympathetic and dubious. Hanna Schwarz and Renée Morloc, two renowned contraltos, as well as the former artistic director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Kirsten Harms, take sides in this show, which happily wanders through the more shady corners of the operatic people. Stephen Fisher

Ancient Roman cookbook

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The scientific and systematic ambition of the ancient Romans is also evident in the kitchen. Corresponding to the ten books on architecture by Vitruvius, there are also ten books on the art of cooking by Apicius, which is also a prime example of the practical. Before you start cooking, you will first learn something about the production of spices and the correct storage and preservation of food. But it is also about recognizing quality. In addition, you learn smaller tricks and larger deceptive manoeuvres, for example how to make white wine from red wine or how to produce Liburnian oil.

Surely this cookbook by Marcus Gavius ​​Apicius – here in a bilingual edition, translated by Robert Maier – was not widespread among the common people. The majority of Romans had to settle for frugal fare, with porridge and the like. It looked better among the bourgeoisie, and the eating habits of the upper class seemed to know hardly any limits to what could be cooked.

This is demonstrated by recipes for all conceivable vegetable and meat dishes, for venison, beef, lamb, kid, wild boar, deer and dormice, but also for the preparation of flamingo and parrot, oysters and fattened snails, all kinds of fish, pigeon, partridge, crane, ostrich and pheasant. And the selection of spices is almost unmanageable. There are also salads and desserts.

Anyone who thinks that European cuisine has its roots in Italy is right. But anyone who thinks that it only developed in so many different ways during the Renaissance is wrong. The magic kitchen of Apicius proves: everything was already there with the old, richer Romans.

For those who don’t want to learn history or Latin, but actually want to use the cookbook as such, there are also recipes based on today’s ingredient standards; there are also no protected animals. Instead: liver dumplings in sausage skin, melon salad, fish pan, chicken with liquid filling. However, a tip for the preparation of birds of all kinds should be used with caution: “So that the birds do not become too soft: It will be better for everyone to cook them with their feathers. But first they are gutted with the throat, or, after the rump has been removed, from behind.” Helmut Mauro

Gangster Movie “The Grissom Gang”

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Robbery, murder, kidnapping, early 30’s upstate Missouri. After a wild night, young Barbara Blandish ends up in the farmhouse of Ma Grissom and her boys. Ma wants to kill the girl after a million dollar ransom is paid, but her son Slim has fallen in love and protects her. For the others he is one dimwitan imbecile, once they laughed their heads off at his stylish new suit for ten minutes.

Director Robert Aldrich has ruthlessly drawn degenerate America, particularly its female matriarchs (pictured: Irene Dailey as Ma Grissom). “The Grissom Gang” (finally on DVD by Pidax) is from 1971, based on the novel by James Hadley Chase: “No Orchids for Miss Blandish”, 1939. A fairy tale about a love that is as grotesque as it is tender, which ends in a pseudo- Art Deco nightmare, brightly colored, with a golden toilet bowl. Fritz Goettler

Children’s Book “Pizza Cat”

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There are children’s books that only children like. Others are made more for the parents. And then there are the rare specimens that hit everyone, and whose lyrics and verses immediately find their way into family parlance. “Pizzakatze” by Will Gmehling, published by Peter Hammer Verlag, is such a book: a bit absurd, full of wit, but realistic enough to captivate children. The fact that it’s about animals and food helps, of course, with these topics you get everyone, old journalist rule.

Pizza cat Pia (“quick and dashing, MAMMA MIA!”) delivers the best pizza in town, to various animals with funny names (“Anastasia and Atze / only buy / from the cat.”), in the circus, in prison ( Atze!) “Or on Wednesdays for daycare: / Real Pizza Margherita!”. It was illustrated, just as humorously, by Antje Damm. A book that doesn’t want to teach anyone anything, except maybe: Life is beautiful because there is pizza. Kathleen Hildebrand