Portrait – “These readings mean a lot to me” – District of Munich

The day of the premiere was also the finale. Almost exactly a year ago, on November 1st, 2020, Michael Stacheder presented the concert reading “I want to lead you by the hand to you the wonders of the world for the first time in the Franz-Marc-Museum in Kochel with his partner Anna März and the Trio Anheizholz to show “from the letters of Franz and Maria Marc. High above the Kochelsee, flanked by the masterpieces of the painter who was born in Munich in 1880, März and Stacheder read from the correspondence of the artist couple, who had been married since 1913. Letters and cards full of longing and tenderness, which gave insights into the soul of the writer, but also into the art scene, the beginnings of the “Blue Rider” and, from 1914 on, the experience of the great war. “It was really special in this room,” recalls Stacheder. “But the mood was also very melancholy.” No wonder: the second lockdown began one day later, cultural events were no longer possible with an audience for months, and the last curtain had come down for the time being. Compulsory break.

Well, when it comes to long breaks and the last curtains, Michael Stacheder, 41 years old, actor and director, has plenty of experience. When he thinks of the Junge Schauspiel Ensemble München (JSME), which he founded in 2004 and which was de facto dissolved in 2016, he even speaks of the “iron curtain” that went down on him at the time. For Stacheder, the long-time director of the ensemble, whose parent company had been the Kleine Theater Haar since 2009 and which staged a number of productions there, also nationally recognized, the struggle next to the stage in 2014 and 2015 was more dramatic than on her – and without a happy ending. After the already difficult financial situation of the ensemble came to a head during this time and the liabilities became more and more oppressive, the end was unstoppable. There was no future for the independent theater group, which in addition to Stacheder included various actors as well as office workers, technicians or dramaturges (even the annual funding from the community of Haar and the project-related support from the Upper Bavaria district were insufficient). It was particularly dramatic that von Stacheder invested a lot of private money in the JSME company, a family house in Bad Aibling was encumbered with a land charge. The director struggled for a long time, persevering and increasingly desperate, but ultimately felt “left out in the rain” on many fronts and had to slowly give up. The house had to be sold, the company’s bankruptcy was delayed even longer, but since spring 2020 it has finally been a reality.

“I’m doing really well compared to back then,” says Stacheder. After the JSME project collapsed in 2016, the Rosenheim native, who grew up in Bad Aibling and later lived in Munich for a long time, went underground for a while. “I needed that. A complete cut.” The return to the family environment in Bad Aibling followed as well as a kind of break, probably also due to burnout and depressive moods. “I don’t remember exactly what I did in 2016. For a while I didn’t want to know anything about the theater,” says Stacheder. Since then he has not had any contact with almost any of the people in the former Junge Schauspiel Ensemble München. Thinking, licking wounds, maybe repressing the question and asking “Have I failed?” determined this phase.

This is of course long over: Stacheder, who in between doubted whether he would ever do something with theater and scenic productions again, has been creative and active again for some time. The concert reading mentioned at the beginning, which he should originally have given with his colleagues last Friday in Taufkirchen, was canceled at short notice, but the 41-year-old still has plenty to do. In addition to artists of the “Blue Rider” such as Franz Marc or August Macke, who inspire him not least because of their utopian ideas of a new, pure art, Stacheder also specializes again in aspects of the culture of remembrance – that was already a trademark of the Junge Schauspiel Ensemble Munich – which is reflected, for example, in readings from Max Mannheimer’s late diary. “I focused on the small shape.” The lectures about the man from Mannheim who died in 2016 and who lived in Haar for a long time, who survived the Holocaust and played an outstanding role as a contemporary witness, are well booked all over Germany. “These readings mean a lot to me,” says Stacheder. He prepared another reading on Stefan Zweig, “Voices from the World of Yesterday” is a long-term literary project. On his impressively and ambitiously designed homepage “Theaterwelten” (https://michaelstacheder.com), you can find out more about it.

Open detailed view

To a certain extent, Max Mannheimer has again to do with Stachher’s real return to creative public life. In the course of a politically controversial debate about the naming of a street in Max-Mannheimer-Strasse that did not show his hometown Bad Aibling in the best possible light, Stacheder initiated the Max-Mannheimer Kulturtage as a reaction, which took place there for the first time in 2018 – under the motto ” Remembering each other. ” For Stacheder it was a consistent continuation of his artistic career as a director – in 2004 he staged “The White Rose – From the Archives of Terror”, followed by plays such as “Mala and Edek – a story from Auschwitz” or “The Jewish Bank”.

In 2017 he even staged another opera, followed by a second in 2018 (Mozart’s “La clemenza di Tito”), and he also has other literary programs in his repertoire. So he has overcome the longer period of shock of 2015/16 for some time, and the corona-related crisis times have not bothered him – who has already experienced worse, so to speak. He sees with regret that culture has generally suffered and that the future, especially that of the independent theater scene, is not exactly shining in the brightest colors. Stacheder also views the audience’s return, which is still very hesitant, with skepticism.

It remains to be hoped for him and in general that the cultural audience will gradually find their way back into the halls. It is not yet clear when Stacheder and Anna März will catch up with their Franz Marc reading in the culture and congress center in Taufkirchen, but another date in the district has been set. It is a special one: on February 26, 2022, Stacheder will perform the Marc reading at a place that he knows very well and that he actually thought he could and would never return to: the Kleine Theater Haar. “I want to lead you by the hand to show you the wonders of the world.”