I’m really bad at telling anecdotes – unlike Flimm. Jürgen has a gigantic fund of stories and has always been eager for new ones. That’s why rehearsals always started a little later for him. First talk warmly. What was being talked about! And laughed! My affection for him has persisted since I first met him. That would have been 1978, in Switzerland on New Year’s Eve. We celebrated, Thomas Brasch, Matthias Langhoff, Jürgen and me. It became a great binge. Jürgen had just been appointed artistic director for the first time, at the Cologne theater and the “Käthchen von Heilbronn” the opening premiere should be.
At some point he asked me if I wanted to be his Käthchen. A dream role, for the first time Kleist in my life and Jürgen was sympathetic to his Rhenish cheerful nature and his enthusiasm. I said yes and came to his Cologne. The Käthchen was a great success for Jürgen, for all of us. The wonderful Elisabeth Trissenaar played my evil counterpart, Michael Rastl the knight. A tall, handsome man, but not very skilled, he broke my toe and two ribs. I had to run blindfolded and barefoot on a long walkway through the entire auditorium to the stage to the farewell court. Left and right were the heads, everyone could admire my bare feet. If Jürgen didn’t make a legendary appearance for me in West German theater life!
Director Jürgen Flimm in his apartment in Cologne 1985, where he was director of the theater.
(Photo: imago / Dieter Bauer)
There was a huge ship in the auditorium, which surprised me a lot, because this Kleist work was an absolutely inland piece for me, Heilbronn is not by the sea. “That’s the critic’s trap,” Jürgen always said, because I understood a lot about theater in the West.
When I was doing my first own production at the Berlin Schillertheater, “Macbeth”, Jürgen came to a performance. “Girl, you can do something that beginners can seldom do: make good transitions,” he said afterwards and a little later made me the offer to stage at the Thalia Theater, where he was now artistic director: Brecht and Strindberg, a huge opportunity.
He also brought me to his house in the Hanseatic city as an actress – for “Richard III.” – and a great co-production between Hamburg-Vienna-Paris: I was allowed to play “Mother Courage” in German and French, staged by Jérôme Savary. For me, these were all wonderful artistic opportunities and great times. At some point we lost sight of each other. He became the big zampano at the big operas and theaters and I went my little ways.
Actress and director Katharina Thalbach, 67, is currently rehearsing “Murder on the Orient Express” in Berlin.
(Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka picture alliance / dpa)
I have the feeling that Jürgen has been around the world for 150 years because he has done and moved so much, as artistic director and director up and down the country and everywhere. I last saw him in 2017 when Claus Peymann said goodbye to the Berliner Ensemble. He has grown old. “Oh Kathi,” he said and smiled at me very sweetly. An honest smile. What do you wish for someone like that for their 80th birthday? That he’ll be 100? Oh Jürgen, the main thing is a good prostate.
Protocol: Christiane Lutz