Gerd Kunath

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Gerd Kunath (born June 14, 1930 in Herzberg am Harz ; † February 11, 2017 in Düsseldorf ) was a German actor and theater director .

Life

From 1952 to 1955 Gerd Kunath received his artistic training at the Musikhochschule Wiesbaden. His first engagements took him to Mainz and from 1958 to 1960 at the Burghofbühne in Dinslaken . From 1959 to 1961 Kunath worked as an actor and assistant director at the Düsseldorfer Kammerspiele , then he worked at the Theater am Niederrhein in Kleve and the Städtische Bühnen Dortmund until he returned to Dinslaken and Düsseldorf, where he also directed for the first time.

In the season 1964/65 Kunath made his debut on Swiss stages when he was engaged at the Chur City Theater . From 1965 to 1969 he had a permanent engagement at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf and also performed as a guest at the Grenzlandtheater Aachen . In 1969 Kunath went back to Switzerland, where he could be seen and directed in around 20 roles at the Basel Theater until 1974 . From 1975 a long-term collaboration with Claus Peymann began , first between 1975 and 1979 at the Staatstheater Stuttgart , between 1979 and 1986 at the Schauspielhaus Bochum , then until 1999 at the Vienna Burgtheater and finally from 2000 at the Berliner Ensemble . In addition, Kunath was a guest at other well-known theaters such as the Städtische Bühnen Nürnberg , the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe , at the Schauspiel Frankfurt , at the theaters of the city of Cologne , in Hamburg at the Schauspielhaus , Thalia Theater and Kammerspiele , again in Switzerland at the Theater Basel and the Schauspielhaus Zurich , at the Berlin Renaissance Theater and at the Salzburg Festival .

Under Kunath countless roles were of Hamm in Samuel Beckett's Endgame , Gayev in The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov , president of Walter in Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich Schiller and the Duke of Buckingham in William Shakespeare's drama Richard III. Kunath played in various world premieres, for example in 1978 in Stuttgart as the captain in Thomas Bernhard's play Immanuel Kant directed by Claus Peymann, in 1990 at the Thalia Theater as Förster Bertram in the musical The Black Rider by Tom Waits , William S. Burroughs and Robert Wilson , who also directed, in 2001 as Professor Rose in Die Insichtbare by Christoph Ransmayr at the Salzburg Festival, again under the direction of Peymanns, and as early as 1970 as Martin Luther in Dieter Fortes Martin Luther & Thomas Münzer or The Introduction of Accounting in Basel (Director: Kosta Spaic ).

Kunath's directorial work included Friedrich Dürrenmatt's comedy The Visit of the Old Lady at the Chur City Theater and The Cassette by Carl Sternheim in Basel. Kunath himself worked as an actor alongside Peymann and Wilson under other well-known directors such as George Tabori , Leander Haußmann , Werner Düggelin , Niels-Peter Rudolph and Luc Bondy .

Kunath played over 30 roles on the stage of the Berliner Ensemble alone. His last job was that of the bigwig in Bertolt Brecht's The Good Man of Sezuan . On 13 January 2017 he stood as Mr. Gabor in Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind last time on stage.

Gerd Kunath was primarily a theater actor and rarely appeared in front of the camera or worked as a radio play speaker in his career. After Walter Richter's death , Kunath was hired as the successor to the character of Tatort commissioner Paul Trimmel . Of three planned one-hour episodes to be broadcast out of sequence, only two were implemented (1985 Whoever Lies and 1986 A Bomb Story ) because they were not accepted by viewers.

Filmography

Radio plays

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Thomas Blubacher: Gerd Kunath . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1052.
  2. ↑ a b c d Subtle comedic. on: nachtkritik.de , February 13, 2017, accessed on August 29, 2017.
  3. ^ Ingo Löchel: Inspector Trimmel. on: zauberspiegel-online.de , accessed on August 29, 2017.
  4. ^ Joachim Hess: Tatort Compendium from AZ. Verlag epubli, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8442-6182-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Kunath, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Herzberg am Harz
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 2017
Place of death Dusseldorf