As a viewer, you sometimes tend in one direction and then the other. That’s typical of Schirach, the Munich lawyer and bestselling author is a master at it. Ferdinand von Schirach leads the viewer on the wrong track – where the emotions want to go. And these, as Schirach’s new play “She says. He says” exemplary, has no place in the courtroom.
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The stage (Walter Vogelweider) is a sterile courtroom reminiscent of a TV studio from the 70s. Birgit Hutter’s costumes bring you into the present: the TV presenter (Silvia Meisterle) wears sneakers with a suit. This courtroom stage belongs to her in the first third. She calmly describes what happened to her. The fact that she does not seem like a victim to some because of her sovereignty is a trap and at the same time a strong statement by Schirach: how many women are not believed? Not by the police, not in court? Of course, there is no such thing as partisanship in Schirach’s work.
Herbert Föttinger will have to listen to all of this in silence in the role of the accused. He is not allowed to speak until 9:11 p.m., which he does brilliantly. You can believe how upset he is. Until then he stays on stage and has to remain silent for 110 minutes. He manages that too. You can watch him literally collapse after hearing everything he has heard.
Every real courtroom has something of a stage about it. However, and therein lies the paradox of the courtroom drama genre, one does not want to see actors in the theater who “act” but rather those who seem as if they were “real”. Not everyone succeeds in doing this and there is a lack of pace here. The star of the evening is Josef Lorenz as lawyer Biegler, who, by arriving late, gives himself a “big entrance” and then asks mockingly: “But nothing important has happened yet, has it?”
Biegler will continue to be the brilliant, cheeky veteran, and this is not only Lorenz’s achievement, the play shows it, who harasses the judge (competent: Ulli Maier) as if she were a teacher. And at the same time makes the well-prepared defense attorney (Martina Stilp) look like a nerd. Both will engage in a duel with their pleadings, in which Biegler will land a point victory in front of the court and the audience with wit and arguments. But that doesn’t mean anything, because Schirach is still good for a surprise in the final round.
KURIER rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
