“Pension Schöller”, in a version by Thomas Jonigk – freely adapted from the comedy by Wilhelm Jacoby and Carl Laufs.

Staatstheater Kassel, premiere July 2, 2021

Alfred Klapproth needs money. His uncle, the landowner Philipp Klapproth, offers it to him – but not without something in return. The uncle has traveled to Berlin especially to attend the soirée of a mental hospital – and to experience “real lunatics” for once. The nephew, however, lacks the appropriate contacts and so he promptly declares the Pension Schöller, including its eccentric guests, to be an insane asylum with associated patients. Much to his uncle’s delight, he has a great time and immerses himself voyeuristically in the general madness. With fatal consequences – because: “to consider oneself completely normal is the mildest form of insanity” …
The premiere of Pension Schöller took place in Berlin in 1890, was filmed several times and has since regularly caused tears in the theater, of course with laughter. Thomas Jonigk subjects the play to a fundamental adaptation and transports the supposedly harmless comedy into our Federal Republic reality, in which the boundaries between delusion, grotesquerie, nightmare and political everyday life can often no longer be drawn.

 

PHILIPP KLAPPROTH – Bernd Hölscher
ALFRED KLAPPROTH – Konstantin Marsch
ULRIKE SCHÖLLER – Christina Weiser
AMALIE PFEIFFER, her sister-in-law – Jürgen Wink
IDA, Amalie’s daughter – Alexandra Lukas
FRIEDERIKE, twin sister of Ida – Sandro Šutalo
FRITZ BERNHARDY, an exterminator – Artur Spannagel
GRÖBER, a policeman – Stephan Schäfer
EUGEN RÜMPEL, a budding actor – Meret Engelhardt
WAITER 1, WAITER 2, WAITRESS – Stephan Schäfer | Artur Spannagel || Christina Weiser
A RAT – Yorick Tortochaux

INSTRUCTION -Thomas Jonigk
STAGE AND COSTUME -Ric Schachtebeck
MUSIC – Mathis Nitschke
LIGHTING – Oskar Bosmann
DRAMATURGY – Petra Schiller
DIRECTORIAL ASSISTANCE AND EVENING PERFORMANCE – Yorick Tortochaux
stage design assistant – Sibylle Pfeiffer
COSTUME ASSISTANCE – Ariella Karatolou | Isabell Heinke
INSPICIENCY – Susanne Bien
SOUFFLAGE – Cornelia Orphal

MUSIC USED Robert Schuhmann: Die Stille | Friedrich Glück: In einem kühlen Grunde | Hugo Wolf: Heimweh | Johannes Brahms: Heimweh | All lyrics are by Joseph von Eichendorff || Johann Sebastian Bach: Recitativo from Nun kommt der Helden Heiland

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)