It is rather rare for the whole room to sing along at a cabaret. This is not the only reason why the gala for the 34th German Cabaret Prize in the packed Tafelhalle will be fondly remembered. First Eva Eiselt from the Eifel, who had been awarded a special prize by the responsible Nuremberg Burgtheater, encouraged the audience to chant the tempting word “agave thick juice” in chorus. Later, main prize winner Luise Kinseher from Munich easily got the amused crowd to greet Bavaria’s new heraldic animal with a loud “Moooo”. Basically as a new female role model and replacement for the lion, whose lifestyle as the “leading animal of our Bavarian politics” is simply no longer up to date. For him it’s all about “eat, roar, sleep”.
The gasps of a constantly agitated nation were almost programmatically ignored by the equal number of people on stage that evening. It was more like a free breath in the eye of the typhoon, it was about all too human comfort and down-to-earthness. Julia Lehner, cultural mayor of the city of Nuremberg (the donor of the prize money), landed on the famous Franconian carnival and the principle of listless immobility in her search for local humor. Ulan & Bator, as last year’s winners are now responsible for the overall moderation, recommended “belief in change” as parallel globetrotters wearing bobble hat camouflage.
Last year’s winners Ulan and Bator (Sebastian Rüger and Frank Smilgies) frame this year’s honorees: next to Luise Kinseher (2nd from left) are Philipp Scharrenberg (middle), who received the program award, and Eva Eiselt (2nd from right), who got the special price.
(Photo: Daniel Karmann/dpa)
For Philipp Scharrenberg from Bonn, however, “the whole world is one big mind-fuck.” But, as the winner of the program award knows: “Confusing is human.” And when looking at a country that often lives at an “absolute minimum level of intelligence”, it resorts to literary, polished nature poetry. On “Facebusch” and “Ginstagram”: “Nature is a network, and that’s only now coming out through the television foresters.” For Eva Eiselt, the dependence on confusing worlds also plays a role, and even more so the reflection of the image of women. When she walks around the keyboard frying the soy sausage or acrobatically putting on her support stockings, the people cheer in self-knowledge.
Ulan & Bator had announced the excellent Luise Kinseher as the “Rampensau to kneel down”. Which was by no means an exaggeration. The “Mama Bavarica” (ret.) has perfected her course of heartfelt insidiousness over the years and is in great form as a comedian with strong presence and precision in her appearance.
She asks herself why we are all “stupid as a tapeworm” (answer: because a land of milk and honey leads to the regression of the brain), defeats AI by pulling the plug and demands in a slurring state: “I have to get out of the comfort zone.” With Munich’s eye on the German Cabaret Prize, she says with a smug smile: “If we didn’t have Nuremberg, Germany would be even further away.” It will be continued in January 2025. With Luise Kinseher as presenter.