GRIPS Theater Berlin

it". Now we knew where to find the
difference: boys and girls were prepared
in different ways for their roles
in life. I co-wrote a play for the first
time with Reiner Lücker: MAN-
NOMAN!. We needed a new name
as a Company for the opening night
in May 1972. Reiner's suggestion,
which had also been voiced by se-
veral children, was adopted and we
became the GRIPS Theatre. For us,
GRIPS meant first and foremost thinking
is fun ...
With the play DOOF BLEIBT DOOF
we finally got around to writing about
the subject that had been suggested
most by children: stress at
school. DOOF BLEIBT DOOF was the
first play that had printed backup
material for teachers. We had long
since realised that what happened
after the performance was just as
important as the performance itself.
The continual reports from surprised
teachers about children who suddenly
opened up and talked about themselves
after they had seen their problems
portrayed on stage made it
clear to us that children must be gi-
ven sufficient opportunity to talk about
the strong impressions these performances
made on them. Stefan
Reisner, a new GRIPS author, wrote
a play for younger audiences in
1973. His effervescent RUHE IM
KARTON! caused heated debate because
it revived early GRIPS traditions
and used magical, surreal, ironic
and clownlike elements, some of
which were "GRIPSized" and some
left as they were. This was followed
six weeks later by the equally successful
première of one of the most
important and consequential GRIPS
plays ever, EIN FEST BEI PAPADAKIS,
a classical five-act play. Here, too,
we had reacted to a topic that was
high on the children's request list:
foreigners, or more precisely, the
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