There are rooms that call to receive you immediately. The small hall of the court theater in the Sendlinger Stemmerhof is certainly one of them. It is a mixture of the improvised and the planned, of the leftovers and the new. The stage has appropriated the space sympathetically, since it doesn’t really belong in this strange construction. There are around 100 seats in front of and next to the play platform. Two-person plays have a good place on this one, with more performers you probably have to think carefully about the paths across the stage.
The audience sits on two levels in old cinema seats and on chairs that could also be in a seminar room. Some of the brickwork has been left open, and some of it was clad with old wood from the Stemmerhof barn. And then there’s the bar, a small curved counter in a corner of the auditorium. The drinks that guests buy there can be taken to their seats.
Iris von Zastrow calls it a “place of well-being”. Together with Stefan Zimmermann, she opened the venue in autumn 2021. That was in the middle of the pandemic, the regulations were strict, it was difficult for most small houses to keep the game going. So there is a lot to be said for the fact that two theater directors went to work here with some enthusiasm. If you ask Zastrow how she would describe her job in the house, she also says: “We make theater out of passion.”
The two did not start from scratch at the Stemmerhof. As early as 2001, they founded the guest theater Agon together in order to “bring high culture to the area”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/. “The subject of entertainment is not to be scoffed at,” says Zastrow. A proven form here is the “comedy with depth”, as she says. According to its own information, the Agon Theater puts on nine to twelve productions a year and around 200 performances. Quite a bit, but there was still the desire to have their own house in Munich, as a platform to present themselves and the artists. When they got the chance at the Stemmerhof, they jumped at it, says Zastrow. At the start there is now another wish: “It is important to us to be a district theatre.” They also like to expand the sphere of activity.
The Stemmerhof is a suitable place
The place Stemmerhof with its gastronomy and its cultural projects is already very suitable. On the stage itself, Zimmermann and Zastrow show guest performance projects by artists with whom they would like to work. This should also include a few Agon productions, but also a lot of other things. For example, the Édith Piaf chanson evening “La vie en rose” is currently running, and in February the crime play “Being Called Murder”. With their music partners from Soundscouts, they are bringing a jazz series into the house, something like that is coming in February Matthias Bublath Trio. In-house productions for the court theater are also part of the programme.
The first just premiered. Stefan Zimmermann directed and is also on the stage. The piece, “Love Letters” by AR Gurney has obviously done it to him. He is staging it for the third time, says Zastrow. With Ursula Buschhorn and Peter Kremer, this evening is actually in his direction in the Agon guest performance program. For the Hoftheater production, he has now brought Ursula Berlinghof to his side on stage. Together they purr the two-person piece through the evening without frills.
It is about the relationship between Melissa and Andrew. She is the daughter of rich parents, artistically talented, but shaped by many unhappy relationships with her family and later with men. He comes from a good family, is athletic, smart, and he is purposefully pursuing his career from lawyer to picture-perfect politician. The two grow up together and spend their lives writing letters to each other, which form the text material for the play.
The principle is the same as in Daniel Glattauer’s successful novel “Gut gegen Nordwind”, except that the writing exchange begins in the 1930s. According to the stage directions, Berlinghof and Zimmermann each sit at a table, in front of them a stack of papers with the text, they don’t look at each other until the end, the story should remain in the cosmos of the letters. Anyone who consciously restricts resources in this way has to put a lot into the vote. Both of them can. This is how a love story develops in audio book format, which Berlinghof accompanies with expressive facial expressions and nervous finger play and Zimmermann complements with the adjusted but self-confident attitude of a smart bourgeois. The result is a concentrated evening that fits in perfectly with this feel-good place.
Love Letters, further performances on Jan 26 and Feb 8, 9 and 16, Court Theater Munich, Plinganserstr. 6, telephone: 089/18 90 47 54