Andrea Berth phases “A German Life” in Vienna | EUROtoday

In 2017, Brunhilde Pomsel died on the age of 106 in a retirement dwelling in Munich. Almost a yr earlier, the Austrian documentary “A German Life” was launched, directed by filmmaker Christian Krönes along with Olaf S. Müller, Roland Schrotthofer and Florian Weigensamer. Thirty hours of interview materials turned 113 minutes of a documentary, which, enriched with historic movie clips, for instance from the Warsaw Ghetto, introduced Mrs Pomsel’s tales about her life nearer to the viewers.

Between 1942 and May 1, 1945, she was secretary to Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, however at all times claimed that in this time and all through the complete interval since 1933, she had by no means heard something in regards to the measures to exterminate the Jews, Roma, Sinti, Yenish individuals and all the opposite individuals persecuted, tortured and murdered by the NSDAP regime.

After Brunhilde Pomsel’s demise, the accompanying ebook by Thore D. Hansen “A German Life: What the story of Goebbels’ secretary teaches us for the present” was printed for the movie. Based on this work, the British playwright, translator and director Christopher Hampton wrote the one-person play “A German Life”, which had its world premiere at London’s Bridge Theater in 2019 with Maggie Smith as Brunhilde Pomsel. And now the Theater in der Josefstadt introduced the piece – textual content translated by Sabine Pribil – to the Vienna stage in its first collaboration with Andrea Breth.

Lore Stefanek delivers the virtually two-hour monologue with admirable perseverance. However, monologue does not actually apply in Breth’s manufacturing. On the stage designed by Raimund Orfeo Voigt, Stefanek, wearing an elegant blue costume and jacket (costumes: Jens Kilian), sits on an upholstered chair with a small desk, with a bottle of champagne and a champagne glass on it, from which she typically sips, within the middle of the brilliant room, which is in any other case empty aside from a flooring lamp, a gramophone within the background and, by means of one of many three door frames, a piano that may typically be seen within the subsequent room.

But the biographical and assured embellished narrative is commonly interrupted. For instance, when she claims to have heard nothing in regards to the Aryanization, a person stalks by means of the room and in a quiet voice mentions an entire sequence of Jewish firms and companies that had been “defunct” within the jargon of the Berlin district courtroom within the Thirties. Or teams of individuals go by the “Pomseline”, as Pomsel apparently preferred to name itself, singing and dancing within the type of the Golden Twenties.

Soon, nonetheless, solely creepy-happy songs observe in such scenes, principally from German movie comedies of the time, comparable to “The Stars Shine” (1938), “Liebespremiere” (1943) or, much less cheerfully, Lale Andersen’s well-known hit “It all goes by, it all goes by” (1941). Adam Benzwi, who additionally performs the piano, is accountable for the music choice, definitely in shut settlement with Andrea Breth.

The description “sarcasm” appears completely applicable for this manufacturing, or extra exactly, for the best way it offers with Brunhilde Pomsel’s personal trivialized recollections. Or the evaluation that it’s extra of a documentary with musical accompaniment than a play. In any case, it is not a night to be ok with, as a result of Brunhilde Pomsel’s oft-repeated phrase that she did not know something about all of this nonetheless resonates for a very long time.