The screaming of the children at the beginning is not art. The tension is there anyway. It’s already rising when the guests approach the Lincolnwiese in Obergiesing, where Mario Kasper, 38, and his wife have pitched their tent. It’s blue and yellow and looks like one of the Roncalli was washed too hot, so that only 130 people fit in. Excitement, illusion and fascination don’t just have to be there at the beginning, but also after an hour, for the grand finale.
Kasper is part of the illusion, for example that his “Children’s Book Theater” is a large one with many employees. Until the children sit on the blue plastic chairs on a Saturday in January and stare up at the stage with their hands warmed by the popcorn bag and the heater, only he and his wife are on duty. She collects, he prepares. Gummy bears to eat or light sticks to wave. The tent has been sold out for a long time, there is even an additional performance this Sunday, so the popcorn can burn.
Kasper wears a headset, he also has to greet the audience and make them scream. For someone who knows the daily occurrence, however, this is as normal as eating chocolate. The right question is enough.
Kasper comes from a circus family, his grandmother is still with the Munich hand puppet theater at 88. You have to rely on what he tells you, because “all the written documents are in Grandma’s caravan and she’s on holiday for once,” says Kasper.
The first generation, then still called Richter, started with a peasant theater in the 19th century. Profession, enthusiasm and equipment were passed on to the children, who were initially forced to travel and later mostly voluntarily, as well as to Kasper’s grandparents and parents, who settled in Munich. Which didn’t mean the boy went to a regular school there. “Sometimes a week in Aubing, sometimes two in Haar.” Kasper was a guest student, but only up to the sixth grade, when he dropped out. “I learned to write and do arithmetic from my parents.” They had an interest in it, because without it you can’t continue the business. And certainly not without talking.
“Snow White or Robber Hotzenplotz don’t attract us as much anymore”
In the warm tent, Kasper now folds the headset over his mouth, steps out from behind the candy counter and stands in front of the stage, whose glittering curtain, which is still closed, sparkles at head height behind him. “Shall we starteeee?” is the question answered by the visitors in the first three rows with west curve volume. Kasper smiles and disappears backstage. Curtain up, a Punch and Judy character appears, speaking a little deeper than the human announcer a minute ago. Kasperl briefly tells the introduction to the “Nohorn” book by Marc-Uwe Kling, a kind of children’s book story for everyone, written like a modern family film: with jokes for the little ones, about colorful piles of excrement, for the grown-ups, about a Neinhorn birth , or for everyone with protagonists like the “So what?”-saying Nahund or the no-saying Neinhorn.
An ideal story to fill up the tent. “Snow White or the robber Hotzenplotz don’t bring us that much interest anymore,” says Kasper after the performance. It was completely different with the “Grüffelo”, a somewhat stupid monster. “The more well-known the character, the more children want to see their heroes live.” Then it becomes clear whether, in times of ubiquitous digital devices and films, you can still survive at home with a theater that stands on a meadow in the rain. But that’s where the real Neinhorn is guesting, at least that’s what the guests in the front rows, mainly daycare and kindergarten children, believe. So the horned stick puppet embarks on her adventure, meets squirrel, whimsy and wasbear with the voices of the cashier and the popcorn seller.
“Children are the most critical guests of all.”
The wasbär is the secret star of the tent and a present for Kasper. It’s called that because he keeps saying “What?” asks what soon everyone is yelling along. And that’s the art of holding children by the doll’s perch. “It sometimes happens that some run around and lose interest,” says Kasper. “Children are the most critical guests of all.” On this Sunday it stays quiet until the end, when the “King’s Dockers” always “Yes!” says is saved.
The children’s caravan makes its way home, some very happy because they were still allowed to touch the Neinhorn doll or even take a selfie with it, and Kasper goes over to the trailer to smoke a cigarette for the first sold-out performance of 2023, the next 250 in this year can come.
The Children’s Book Theater is playing “Das Neinhorn” until Sunday, January 29th, then from February 22nd. until 26.2. “The Wutz family”, at Lincolnstraße 60, contact: [email protected] or Tel.: 01575/2137828