A priori one asks oneself: what do you want there? Claus Peymann directs Ionesco’s “The Rhinos”. At the Stadttheater Ingolstadt, a process for which Thomas Bernhard would probably have been happy to adapt his play “Der Theatermacher”. Although Ingolstadt is not Butzbach or Utzbach, the question remains what to expect from the oldest possible white man in German-speaking theater – Peymann was born in 1937 – when he brings a play to the stage that is politically clairvoyant, but also aesthetically stuck in a bygone era. Afterwards, these questions no longer arise because one was attending a small masterpiece, an intellectually permeable, highly precise and fast-paced performance with admirable actors.
It took six years from the first idea to the premiere
It wasn’t an easy birth. Six years ago, when Peymann was still head of the Berliner Ensemble, the Ingolstadt director Knut Weber asked him if he could imagine working on his house. Peyman came. Watched many performances in Ingolstadt, found the productions stupid, the actors great, and decided to stage Marieluise Fleißer’s “Purgatory in Ingolstadt” on the Danube. But then something came up, as a result Peymann’s health was less robust than hoped, he himself staged two plays by Ionesco in Vienna, “Die Stuhle” and “The King Dies”, after which he switched to the “Rhinos” in Ingolstadt when personal Ionesco trilogy. Rehearsals started a year ago, Corona made it impossible to work, the premiere was postponed and postponed. Now she’s out.
Theater is also a craft, and Peymann demonstrates it magnificently. The large house in Ingolstadt was originally designed as an opera stage, so it is only suitable for spoken theater to a limited extent. What does Peyman do? Has Paul Lerchbaumer put a stage on the stage, a wooden square that leans into the orchestra pit. As equipment he needs a few empty window or door frames, five chairs, a bed, the atmospherically effective music by Sebastian Sommer, but nothing more. If the little that is there is rearranged between the files, Peymann shows this too, in the half-darkness of the stage lights.
All speak so beautifully as if they were singing – at a fast pace, like lyrical clockwork
Ionesco creates a parable with archetypes, from which Peymann subtly removes all stereotypes. Employee Behringer, who drinks too much and finds his existence pointless, witnesses how everyone around him turns into rhinos, the naïve Daisy he loves, the colleagues in the office, the people on the street, his friend Hans, the left-wing conspiracy theorist (at Ionesco a man), the nature-addicted right-winger, the line-loyal office worm. Only he who does not function opposes it, remains the only and last human being. Peymann savors the pleasure in the absurd in language; all the performers speak as beautifully as if they were singing, at a fast pace and like lyrical clockwork. The all-encompassing pachydermation that one hears but does not see is an image of totalitarianism and deindividualization; Peymann doesn’t harp on about it, he rightly trusts that the story will be told anyway.
All are dressed in black and white and quite elegantly, have faces painted white, could be pantomimes, but are hyper-real. Enrico Spohn plays Behringer as if he had stepped out of the film “Kinder des Olymps” or some other poetic idea, he can collapse like a puppet whose strings have been cut, he raves and despairs, he is wonderful. And Sascha Römisch delivers a showpiece, becomes a rhino on the open stage, snorting and grunting, while as Hans he secretes proto-fascist nonsense. Everything the ten people play on stage is pure fascination, and Peymann celebrates them with gratitude during the final applause.
At the reception after the premiere, he grabs the microphone himself, talks about problems during the rehearsals, sees the theater as a social dream in danger and makes a plea for the “titans” (i.e. himself) and the discussion about reducing power in the theater for “chatter “. After this staging, he was forgiven.