Premiered at the Renaissance Theater: Drama in the Hollywood Offside

How much attraction does the controversial desert World Cup really have? There is a lot of discussion about this at the moment. A yardstick could be attending a premiere at the Renaissance Theater that lets audiences miss at least the first half of the Spain vs Germany game. A daring approach in earlier times. Surprise or not: it all looks like a clear victory for the theater. A full house on Knesebeckstraße, apparently Leslie Malton and Felix von Manteuffel have at least as much appeal as Thomas Müller and Jamal Musiala.

“An Oscar for Emily” is the name of the play in which the two play an aging couple who have not been in the limelight for a long time. Instead, actress Emily White and actor Henry Porter have their own “Sunset Boulevard” destiny – in the shadow of Hollywood they live in a run-down apartment and blame each other for missed career opportunities from the Liz Taylor days.

Pretzels for the Oscars

But because hope dies last, as is well known, the two dress up between happily offset tips (“I’m going to go to the bathroom now and drown myself” – “But clean the tub afterwards”) for the “Oscar” awards in the evening. Eventually, she or he might be presented with the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

This plot was devised by the late actor and director Folker Bohnet and the former musical actor Alexander Alexy (now a dentist), who also came up with farces such as “Love Long” or “Tango under the Rainbow”.

“An Oscar for Emily” definitely scores with the main characters: two uncurable acting junkies who got stuck on a Technicolor trip. In the absence of an audience, Emily and Henry live out their thirst for self-assertion together, playing “Hamlet” or “Romeo and Juliet” to each other – and just when you think the evening is tilting towards “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” , the scene turns out to be an actual Edward Albee reminiscence. “There’s no people like show people,” sings Irving Berlin’s popular business anthem.

Leslie Malton and Felix von Manteuffel play these second-rate mimes very well, in which the art effort has led to a completely artificial life. Each of her sentences sounds theatrically slipped, artificial, sometimes also wonderfully insecure about the text. Directed by Peter Jordan and Leonhard Koppelmann, the two theater warriors – who are also a couple in so-called real life – perform a sleazy comedy of failed dreams. A love-hate game that gains drama as it goes on.

Yesterday’s lies

A young man named Jeff (Jonas Minthe), who delivers the food to the two ex-stars every day in the Hollywood offside, turns out to be their grandson. His father – Emily and Henry’s son Bill – died of a heroin overdose in the 1990s. Not without first writing a letter in which he accuses his raven parents of their career obsession and addiction to success. But that doesn’t tear those accused of this from their preparations for the big “Oscar” night. Show must go on! A story twist that pushes the limits of credibility.

Not all viewers even get this big life lie finale, which ends for Emily and Henry in front of the television instead of at the gala. After the break, a few seats remain free on the floor. Perhaps the lure of the kick-off in distant Qatar? Let’s agree on a tie between football and theater.

To home page