Patrick (Martin Armknecht) is, or rather was, Daniel’s (Timothy Peach) best friend until he split up with Laurence in favor of Emma (Mia Geese), who is around 25 years younger than him and who is the best friend of Daniel’s wife Isabelle. The aforementioned Laurence does not appear in the play “L’envers du décor” by the Oscar-winning French author Florian Zeller, which premiered under the title “The Other Side of the Medal” in the comedy at the Bayerischer Hof. Nicola Tiggeler, however, represents her interests very energetically as the elegant and sharp-tongued university professor Isabelle (who is also married to Timothy Peach in real life). She finds it an imposition when her husband thoughtlessly invites her traitor friend and his “slut” to dinner.
The milieu is upper middle class; Daniel is a publishing editor in his mid-fifties, Patrick’s job is not discussed, but at least he gives away more expensive red wine than Daniel has in stock. He has just viewed a penthouse as a new home for his young couple and booked a villa in Italy for a vacation. Emma is unlikely to be able to pay for these luxurious accommodations, as she is making a living as a barmaid, while her castings to become an actress are unsuccessful.
On the surface, the four of them master the tricky encounter by exchanging rather trivial pleasantries. The whole thing only becomes interesting through a theatrical device known from the comedies of Molière and later Nestroy, but rarely used today: speaking aside, in which the speaker’s dialogue partner on stage is not supposed to hear what his counterpart is thinking or feeling, but the audience is. It sounds more complicated than it is when you watch it, because the tabloid-hardened director Pascal Breuer and his ensemble manage to pull off the artificial play with two levels with excellent craftsmanship thanks to precise timing and skilful use of light, to the great delight of the audience.
When switching between what is said and what is thought, the body movements of those who are being discussed “a-part” freeze: with a glass in their hand, with their tongue sticking out or thrown over the sofa, they remain in their positions until their counterpart releases them from their paralysis. Only the audience can hear Daniel, confused by his hormones, raving about Emma, ”like morning dew in the evening glow, she makes my insides vibrate”. Only the audience witnesses his erotic mental cinema, in which he snatches the seductively energetic Emma into his arms to rush away with her from the all too familiar married life. The fact that Isabelle also sometimes finds her marriage a burden is shown when she promptly answers Daniel’s question “Have you ever thought about divorce?” with “No, only murder”.
Emma, however, is clever enough to win over not only the men but also the older woman with her charming innocence. The older woman even lends her one of her dresses after her husband, who is busy whipping cream, spills cream on the young woman’s. An originally constructed and fluid social comedy with only one problem: while the two men can act out their rival “gorilla behavior” to the full, the two women have to disappear from the back of the stage for their exchange of blows and suddenly reappear “reconciled”. Their “reverse side” would certainly have been no less exciting.
The other side of the coin, until June 30, Comedy at the Bayerischer Hof