You will stay with me
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| Title: | You will stay with me |
| Genus: | drama |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Felix Mitterer |
| Publishing year: | 2011 |
| Premiere: | September 9, 2011 |
| Place of premiere: | Vienna Volkstheater |
| Place and time of the action: | Vienna and briefly Dallas, Texas ; 1941-1963 |
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You stay with me is a play by the Austrian playwright Felix Mitterer . The first performance of the commissioned work for the Vienna Volkstheater under the direction of Michael Schottenberg took place on September 9, 2011 in the main building of the Volkstheater. It deals with the actress Dorothea Neff , who hid her Jewish friend Lilli Wolff in her apartment in Vienna from 1941 to 1945.
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In the first scene Dorothea Neff can be seen as Penthesilea in the play of the same name by Heinrich von Kleist at a Cologne theater in the 1935/1936 season and receives thunderous final applause.
Vienna, 1941: Neff, now a celebrated actress at the Vienna Volkstheater, receives a visit from her Cologne friend, the Jewish fashion designer, Lilli Wolff. Wolff travels to the Ostmark on the advice of her father because she believes the situation for Jews is better here than in the Old Reich. Neff she takes on in her apartment, but the situation is becoming increasingly difficult, as both of Neffs ration card must live. Wolff finally reports to the police headquarters on the recommendation of her friend and claims to have lost her travel permit, so she receives her own food card and is housed in a collective apartment . In the late autumn of 1941 she was finally asked to get ready for the deportation. Neff Wolff spontaneously decided to hide with her ( “You stay with me!” ). The actress deposited a false suicide note in Wolff's former quarters and the two women moved into Neff's apartment at Annagasse 8. Now they once again have to get by with only one grocery card, Neff also tries to get groceries on the black market and regularly bribes the housekeeper, too Krottensteiner who seems to suspect something.
Wolff's Cologne friends and former partners of their fashion salon, Martha Driessen, called Mati, and Meta Schmitt also move in from time to time. The constant fear of discovery and being locked in tug at Lilli's health: she has stomach problems and is finally admitted to the general hospital with a tumor in her breast under the name Antonie Schmid (Neff's middle name in combination with the last name of her deceased husband) . Erwin Ringel , neighbor, medical student and later psychiatrist, supports Neff in this. He and Neff's young theater colleague, Eva Zilcher , have been privy to the secret. The love between Wolff and Neff has already cooled noticeably due to the nerve-wracking situation, the air raids on Vienna, during which the two have to stay in the apartment, let their mutual affection fade further. Neff finally moves into her mother's apartment with her new love, Zilcher, while Lilli spends the last days of the war alone in Annagasse. When Vienna is taken by the Russians and a company storms Neff's apartment, Dorothea Neff uses her acting skills with the presence of mind and fervently prays the Sch'ma Israel in Iwrit and thus protects the women present from rape (Wolff: “I didn't know that you're Jewish! "Neff:" I'm an actress. ")
The former fashion designer finally emigrates to Dallas , Texas , Martha, her old friend, comes later and the two reopen a fashion store. But the trauma suffered cannot be shaken off so easily, Wolff is haunted by panic attacks and delusions that the Gestapo could come for her. Dorothea Neff is currently giving acting lessons and continues to appear at the theater herself. But her eyesight, which is already poor, decreases more and more until she ultimately becomes completely blind. In desperation, she is only prevented from suicide by her partner Zilcher, and the two rehearse their roles together.
The last scene shows the blind Dorothea Neff in the lead role of Brecht's mother Courage and her children in the direction of Gustav Manker , a performance that is legendary because it violated the so-called Brecht boycott for the first time in Austria .
premiere
Andrea Eckert , who took acting lessons from Neff and Zilcher, played the main role of Dorothea Neff in the premiere . Lilli Wolff was played by Martina Stilp . In the other roles, Nanette Waidmann as Martha Driessen, Claudia Sabitzer as Meta Schmitt, Annette Isabella Holzmann as Eva Zilcher, Inge Maux as Frau Krottensteiner, Thomas Bauer as SS-Sturmführer, Robert Prinzler as Erwin Ringel and Rainer Frieb as Russian officer . Michael Sturminger directed, the music is by Gerald F. Preinfalk .
The criticism was divided: The Austrian daily Kurier judged on September 10, 2011 that the play was a bit stiff and lifeless and that there was hardly any flow of action, but Mitterer created an oppressive situation that touched the viewer. Eckert's performance was praised as being extremely credible, and the rest of the ensemble was also convincing. The standard , dated September 11, 2011, emphasized the restrained direction and also emphasized the portrayal of Andrea Eckert.
Web links
- Presentation of the play on the website of the Volkstheater ( Memento from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive )