Ten, fourteen or even 17 years – there are various calculations as to when a new cabaret stage program by Josef Hader had its premiere last. In any case, it has been long enough, the Viennese, who rose to Austria’s most famous cabaret artist with his monologues, was also busy as an actor, author and director. But now the time has come: “Hader on Ice” can be seen in several Munich venues from November 13th – after a secret test run.
SZ: Mr. Hader, do you remember May 26th of this year?
Josef Hader: (considered)
You played in the courtyard of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. . .
Ah yes, for God’s sake. . .
. . . that was literally “Hader on Ice”. . .
. . . there was still a lot missing, I played without a break and it was still very much in its raw state. And what happens in the end couldn’t be done there.
I said because it was eight degrees and pouring rain.
Oh yes. I’ve never bought functional underwear, I’m not that sporty, that’s why I never need it. But the day before I saw my colleague Alfons, I was so cold that I went straight to the next mountaineering shop and covered up.
Did you decide at short notice not to play “Hader plays Hader” as announced, but instead to play from the new program?
Above all, I was too lazy to put the old program back on after the long break; on the other hand, I thought it would be a good trial by fire. Because I knew it was non-stop, I was able to put the parts together that I was already sure about. I had trained a little before in Innsbruck, not in front of a paying audience, but in front of a few friends.
In any case, you couldn’t perform with gold chains and an open shirt, as the figure is laid out.
No, that was more with a sweater and jacket. But it didn’t go badly with this muscled cabaret figure who has retired to old age.
Does the whole thing take place in the Weinviertel?
Yes, that’s a code word for artists and journalists who have it behind them and now live there, sometimes even in castles.
With you you never really know what is autobiographical. Did you end up in the country yourself during the Corona period?
No, I was in Vienna. It would have been downright illegal to be anywhere but in town. Because of my origins on the farm, any kind of country romance is probably completely impossible for me into old age. I have a brother who is a farmer, if I am longing for country life, I go to see him for a day. Stay overnight, then I’ll be gone again quickly.
But the big cities can also be exhausting.
But Vienna is not as big as Berlin, for example, and above all much slower, so you don’t have to worry that completely different people will be living in your own neighborhood in ten years’ time.
Whereas in Berlin it takes an hour to go to the coffee house for an appointment.
There is no coffee house in Berlin that deserves this name! But seriously: I like the German cities very much, because of the tours. You can be in another city and live a little with it. For a week or two that’s great.
But you haven’t had that for a long time with a premiere. Too much film work?
Yes. I helped write the scripts for most of the films, including the Brenner films. That actually takes the most time, and it’s not that you need less time writing it with three people instead of alone. After that, the goal was to make my own film with a director. If I insert a new program in between, it will never work, I thought to myself. But it was always clear to me: When my own film is finished, then I really want to do a program again. That’s the core area, that’s what I started with and I will probably do that until the end: write lyrics and perform them on stage.
You played your “Privat” program for a good ten years, “Hader plays Hader” even longer. Isn’t that going to be bland?
“Hader plays Hader” I have always varied. It was like shuffling playing cards. The other programs, of course, haven’t changed much. I don’t know why I enjoy this for a long time. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the tenth performance is actually bland if you can’t find a remedy for it. I see it more like a musician who plays the same piece every day a little differently than he is at the moment.
Was there a key experience or a formative event for “Hader on Ice”?
No, that has evolved over time. When populist leaders came everywhere, in Eastern Europe, in America, then also in Austria, it made me want more and more to bring a stupid, arrogant man onto the stage. As Josef Hader, of course.
You can be congratulated on staying out of the daily news. With what is going on in Austria, you would have to rewrite every day.
Yes, this is unfair competition. The colleagues who deal with it for professional reasons are left breathless. But of course you can do that very well, it’s just nothing for me. When I was young and it became clear that this would now be my job, one of the first thoughts was not to become a daily political cabaret artist: The idea that you always have to deal with what the politicians are doing until the end of your life appeared scary to me. I wanted to make programs like others write a novel or a play. And I thought to myself: If that doesn’t work, I’ll be different.
Isn’t the abysmal in the person you are dealing with a lot more gruesome than political cabaret?
I do not know exactly. I just know that I really enjoy the abyss. Regardless of how I feel about my character. It is perhaps like a novelist: that one breaks life down on a piece of paper, so to speak. And so that the interpretive sovereignty over this meaningless existence wins.
Your character in “Hader on Ice” has given up. Is there a kind of apocalyptic mood underlying the program?
Nobody will deny that we are living in a time of upheaval. The post-war period has finally come to an end, something new is coming. But that’s the normal course of history. This time my role models were the plump, hearty satires of the baroque era. I deliberately read Grimmelshausen and Swift beforehand because I thought that these were also times of upheaval when they wrote. And they don’t have a moralizing, but a very hands-on way of describing things that they don’t like. It is tremendous cynicism, but not cold, there is great indignation behind it. And something fantastic, that was also important to me. To tell a bad fairy tale. From an enchanted land where the summers are hot and the winters cold, where wolves can speak – and people choose Kurz.
Josef Hader, Sat. to Mon., Nov. 13th to 15th, Leo17; Fri., Nov. 19, Circus Krone; Sat., Nov. 20, comedy theater; Sat. and Sun., 4th and 5th December, Audimax, www.hader.at/termine
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