A bunch of colorful things

The St. Pauli Theater started the season on Monday with its traditionally enjoyable gala evening. Artistic Director Ulrich Waller welcomed the audience and expressed the hope that the audience would return to the theater in large numbers once all restrictions imposed by the pandemic had been lifted. On the one hand, he builds on tradition, because historically, the right to visit the theaters in Hamburg was not won over by princes too late, but rather “Hamburgers have always built their theaters themselves”. On the other hand, Waller says with a wink, he does not want to and cannot imagine that someone “prefers a Netflix subscription to a visit to the theater” after Corona.

Cabaret artist Matthias Deutschmann led through the evening, improvising and as usual mercilessly. The self-confessed FC Freiburg fan was happy about the snapshot in the Bundesliga table, in which his club is currently in first place. And it is still too early for a corona all-clear, because "Corona stays until Lauterbach leaves." Deutschmann also dealt with the question of free gender choice "just stay in bed in the morning until you know what you are going to be want". In addition, as an old white man, he confessed that racism was genetically written in his DNA, "and as a German, I would even say in the DNA".

Victoria Fleer started the evening singing with a rather simple interpretation of George Gershwin's "Summertime" - whereby a small problem became apparent for the first, but not the last time of the evening: Even if actors can sing well, they are not yet Singer. Therefore, sometimes it would be wiser to select titles that are more appropriate to their abilities. For example, anyone who happened to hear the soprano Golda Schultz from the Metropolitan Opera New York sing "Summertime" at the SHMF final concert in Kiel with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra two weeks ago would not have been able to do much with the Fleer version.

In the coming season, Viktoria Fleer will be on stage at the St. Pauli Theater as Spelunken-Jenny in The Threepenny Opera, alongside Gustav Peter Wöhler as J.J. Peachum and Anne Weber as Celia Peachum. Directed by Peter Jordan. Wöhler crowned the gala evening with songs from his current concert tour, including the wonderful and wonderfully sung "If I Needed You" by Townes Van Zandt. Also very nice: "Friday I'm in Love" by The Cure. "Ring of Fire", on the other hand, is difficult, even for Wöhler, if you take it seriously. Very convincing: Anneke Schwabe with Astor Piazolla's “Balada Para Un Loco”.

The ensemble of the "Comedy with a bank robbery", which can be seen as a guest performance by the Zurich Theater am Hechtpatz in the St. Pauli Theater, contributed entertaining cowboy shuffle and country songs to the colorful evening in a colorful crowd of stages. The vocal highlight of the gala was provided by Tim Fischer with three lesser-known songs by Georg Kreisler, including "Das Tigerfest". In a shrill orange wig with tone-in-tone varnished fingernails and a black suit with a red sash, Fischer, accompanied by bassist Oliver Potratz and pianist Sebastian Weiß, delighted the audience. In December, Fischer will make a guest appearance at the St. Pauli Theater with his program "I am the Leander - Zarah on probation" and will return to the Hansa Theater in 2023 as the master of ceremonies in the musical "Cabaret".

Actor Michael Prelle did not sing, but as the lead actor in the plays "Monsieur Claude and his Daughters" and "Monsieur Claude 2" he delivered a self-written warning in which he referred to the amounts and types of alcohol, which the comedy praises as a problem solver , from champagne to cognac. The acting duo Johanna Christine Gehlen and Sebastian Betzel from the play "The Perfect Secret" are also great. The two performed classics by Karl Valentin, including the "Theatre Compulsion", which urgently needs to be introduced and according to which every citizen has a daily performance in one of the theaters that are still to be built - because the current number of seats in the real theaters is of course not enough for all residents of Hamburg – has to see. Such a compulsory theater would be just right for the theaters after Corona.

Meriam Abbas, Julia Nachtmann and Marie Schulte-Werning acted a key scene from "The Answer to Everything" by Neil Labute, directed by Julia Hölscher. The play about three girlfriends, who are initially very bloodthirsty and then not at all so, will premiere in October. However, it was not an actor or singer who made the most acclaimed performance of the evening, but rather the portly and highly agile hula hoop artist Craig Reid, who is currently appearing in "Velvet" at the Hansa Theater.