Anyone who goes on stage as an artist hopes for a large audience. But in times of the corona pandemic, there are limits to this wish. Because due to distance rules in the audience, only a fraction of the seats can be occupied. Can stage artists even work economically under these circumstances? “It’s less profitable, but still important,” says Carmen Streit, administrative director of the Mabach Castle Theater. For many years the theater has not only performed its plays on its own stage, but has also been on tour with them. On Tuesday evening, the actors made a guest appearance in the Hafurter Stadthalle for the first time since the pandemic began.
A piece with a small cast
“We get along well from popular theater,” says Streit. Ideal values play a major role here. Although the income is lower under these circumstances, the theater staff want to show that they continue to do theater. And the response was consistently positive: in the summer they were among the first theaters to resume playing on their open-air stage and had to set catch-up dates immediately because the first play with distance rules was quickly sold out in the audience. The team was also pleased about the positive feedback from viewers and donations.
For the start of their tour this fall, the Mabacher made a conscious decision for a piece with a small cast due to the corona. The choice fell on the two-person piece “Bildung für Rita” by the English writer Willy Russell.
“Education for Bldis”
The comedy is about a course at the “open university”, which is also supposed to give people from the working class access to higher education. Rita (Anna Schindlbeck) is 26 years old, a hairdresser, married and dissatisfied with her life. Her family regards higher education as unnecessary nonsense. Her husband urges her to finally have children, but she doesn’t feel ready. Rita finds her social environment too superficial and would like to continue her education, which is why she attends a course with the literature lecturer Frank (Ingo Pfeiffer) – “Education for Bldis”, as Rita describes it self-ironically. He, in turn, is disaffected and has a drinking problem.
The whole piece takes place in Frank’s office, where he teaches Rita in the evenings. Several of these lessons are shown, from the first meeting of the two to the time of Rita’s final exam. With her exuberant demeanor and her unconventional way of judging literature, she gives Frank the pleasure of his subject, while she finally feels herself challenged intellectually. This creates a friendship between them, which soon causes jealousy in the duo’s environment. Frank also gets more and more the feeling that with the lessons that are supposed to teach her how to deal scientifically with literature, he is driving out the passion that he values about her.
Slow change played convincingly
The Mabach Castle Theater skilfully put the story into practice. Rita actress Anna Schindlbeck in particular succeeded in depicting the slow change in the appearance of her character so subtly that the audience noticed a change without, however, seeing a sudden break in Rita’s behavior. With 91 visitors, the show was well attended for what is possible in Corona times.
How many people in total would have fit in the town hall is difficult to say, however, according to the theater. Because that depends very much on whether the people come in larger groups that are allowed to sit together, or whether the audience consists of many couples or even individuals, between whom a large distance must always be kept. Carmen Streit cites her own open-air stage in Mabach as an example: There was a performance there with many individual guests, which had to be declared sold out with 66 visitors. In the case of performances in which the audience mainly consisted of larger groups, however, it was possible to sell more than 100 tickets. “There is really a great deal of variance,” says Streit.
Audience must keep their distance
How the rules of distance are implemented in the audience differs from venue to venue, reports Carmen Streit from the guest performances. In Hafurt, the rows of chairs were complete, with the spectators being allocated seats and places remaining free in order to keep the distances between groups of visitors. Elsewhere it also happens that chairs are set up in groups. Since the critical incidence value of 35 was exceeded in the district of Haberge at the time of the performance, the audience had to keep their masks on during the performance.
For the actors, the pandemic means frequent corona tests. Anyone who takes part in a guest performance must bring an up-to-date test with them, and those who have explanatory symptoms are also on the safe side. Performances are also canceled faster, because while actors are otherwise known for demanding a lot and even going on stage with a sometimes very heavy cold, the line is now pulled much faster.
Kiss on stage? “We’re still thinking.”
Meanwhile, rehearsals for “Nach Paris”, the next touring track, are in progress. And it shows that Corona also has an impact on what is and may be presented on stage: “There is a kissing scene in the play,” reports Carmen Streit. It has not yet been decided whether the actors will also kiss in the production of the Mabach Castle Theater. The actors involved live in the same household, so that they should actually kiss without any problems. However, some playing venues attach importance to the fact that certain things that could be considered a violation of hygiene rules should not be shown on the stage at the moment. “You always have to work out a new hygiene concept,” reports Carmen Streit. “We’d rather be careful.” And so also applies to the kiss in the next play, which is to be performed on November 24th in Hafurt: “We’re still thinking.”
Tickets for guest performances of the Mabach Castle Theater is available at the Hafurt Cultural Office.
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