EXB 172

WHAT’S ON — Stage
“How shall I begin?”
German actor Nico Holonics on playing The Tin Drum
alone on stage, in English. By Lily Kelting
Birgit Hupfeld
Editor’s Choice
Holonics, 34, first looks
very serious. And then he
smiles – a big, warm, goofy
gap-toothed smile – and you see it:
Oskar Matzerath. The protagonist
of Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum is a
kind of reverse Benjamin Button –
born with the mind of an adult, he
refuses to grow older, screaming
and drumming incessantly on a tin
drum as World War II rages around
him. Holonics has been telling the
story alone on the German stage for
four years now. In June, he performs
the monologue for the first time in
English at the Berliner Ensemble.
Why an English-language version?
[Berliner Ensemble intendent]Oliver
Reese asked me to do
it as a monologue in 2014 when the
Russian director who was supposed
to do an ensemble version became
ill during the rehearsals. We had
like 55 shows in Frankfurt before
coming to the BE, and then I wanted
a new challenge. I have always been
jealous of opera singers, who can
go to New York, to the Met, and do
their Traviata there, and then to
Milan – I wanted to try that, have
a version that works on international
stages. And this piece is my
baby, you know? In Munich I played
Richard III in my twenties and Oskar
Matzerath is the role of my thirties.
I wanted to make it bigger and not
just stay in Berlin, or go to Vienna.
Have you noticed a difference
between audiences in Frankfurt
and in Berlin? In Frankfurt
at a certain point I knew what my
audience was. And here in Berlin
it’s changing every evening. In the
first half hour they are often very
distant. But then the ice breaks, and
beneath it there’s much more going
on. And in the end it’s a standing
ovation. You have to gain their trust
again every night. You have to tell it
all again. The first line of the play is
“How shall I begin?” and it’s also a
question for the actor himself. How
shall I begin this show? Two hours
alone on the stage, it’s claustrophobic.
It goes very fast and there is no
one to help you out.
What is your relationship like
with Oskar? It’s a feast for an actor,
to play such a prismatic person.
He is so sad and also so offensively
abysmal. I’m thinking of the horrible
sex scene with the Brausepulver –
that is very hard, physically. It’s like
a whole life condensed into two
hours. Three or four days after the
show I still feel it in my body.
That’s the alone-on-stage effect,
right? Yes, you can’t fake it. And you
can’t fake it for two hours. Maybe in
another show, you can say to yourself,
“I’ll phone it in for one scene,
I’m not really feeling it.” But here,
no. “Show your wounds,” Joseph
Beuys demanded, and Oliver Reese
said it to me in rehearsals – the performance
is completely open, except
that I need to show the woundedness
of this boy.
Both Tin Drum the novel and
the film are quite classic! Was
that intimidating? No, not at all.
The very first time I read the novel
was during those rehearsals in 2014.
We actually met Grass in his house
near Lübeck. He was really friendly,
really curious. He was surprised
that no one before us had had the
idea to do it as a monologue. At one
point I was alone with Grass in his
garden, for three or five minutes,
in silence. And Grass, who was very
small, smoking a pipe, said to me, “I
am so proud that a young actor like
you loves my text so much that he is
learning it by heart.” That touched
me and remains with me to this day.
He wrote novels: probably no one
had memorised his texts before.
And now you are learning it all
again in English. Yes! “I was one
of those clairaudient infants whose
mental development is complete at
birth and thereafter only to be confirmed.”
The language is so perfect!
The Tin Drum Jun 20, 19:30 Berliner
Ensemble, Mitte
DON’T MISS
Infektion! Festival
New Opera has been
intendant Jürgen
Flimm’s big spring
festival idea since
he started with the
Staatsoper. Now you
can catch the first
wave of the atonal
avantgarde on Unter
den Linden.
28 Jun-15 Jul
Detroit what!
Not sure if Detroit
and Berlin are one
circle, as the festival
at HAU suggests,
but the concerts,
installations and films
celebrating artistic
practice (and, mostly,
underground techno
scenes) in both cities
seem pretty bumping.
May 30-Jun 1
Radar Ost
DT’s annual new
playwriting fest looks
east and presents
new works from
Georgia, Lithuania,
and Poland. Plus
even if Yael Ronan’s
model of authorship
is not so new
to Berlin, who could
resist a biting, cynical
documentary ensemble
piece about
bleeding hearts,
Gutmenschen?
Jun 1-3
JUNE 2018
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