Nobody should be misled by the title: “Slapstick”. There is not much of it in the evening of the same name in the team theater. Two or three times someone slips, hits their head, there’s a little fight. That’s it. However, Wieland Schwanebeck’s little tabloid comedy is not about achieving as many physical and comical effects as possible. The play, which premiered in 2021, draws more from the punchy dialogues that the author, who was born in 1984, wrote into it. These go back and forth between slapstick star Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles, among others. The two met once, Chaplin’s film “Monsieur Verdoux” is based on an idea of Welles. Schwanebeck has now invented his dialogues around the encounter.
Twice the great filmmakers meet at his house, in 1941 and 1947. The first time, Chaplin is the aging star in a creative crisis, while Welles is an aspiring director who wants to win him over for a film. Chaplin maintains a love affair with the actress Joan Barry, when they meet again this affair is long over, Barry in psychiatry, from which she happily breaks out and afflicts Chaplin. The fourth character in the play is Chaplin’s valet, Toraichi Kono.
Jacoub Eisa organized the evening in the team theater. Aylin Kaip’s stage is a cute little room with Art Nouveau wallpaper and a window overlooking the famous Hollywood sign. The central elements are a sofa, a small table and a bar disguised as a wooden globe. And of course the intensively used door. Eisa keeps the pace and emotions high right from the start. It’s less about the depth of field of the characters and more about the fidgety fight for glory in a place that’s far too small for that. The tall Sandro Kirtzel as Welles can live it out contrapuntally, while Timo Alexander Wenzel as Chaplin and Lina Maria Bullwinkel as Joan Barry work towards their punch lines and Robert Gregor Kühn stands up to him with a pleasant dryness.
Slapstick, until April 1st, Teamtheater gas station, Am Einlaß 2a, phone 089/260 43 33, www.teamtheater.de