Ingund Mewes

Ingund Mewes (born May 5,  1934 in Hanover ; † February 18,  2005 in Cologne ) was a theater director , actress and author . The Piccolo Theater in Cologne, founded and run by her, was the only professional women's theater with a permanent seat in the German-speaking area. Furthermore, she campaigned as a feminist activist against the abortion ban according to § 218 StGB , worked as a spokeswoman for WDR , ARD and Deutsche Welle and was the first female commentary for the television magazine Monitor .

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Ingund Mewes grew up with two younger brothers as the daughter of a housewife and an architect. The frequent visits to the theater with her mother prompted her to decide on a career as an actress at the age of five. Her grandfather and parents gave her an ecological and pacifist attitude at an early age , which was reinforced by her own experiences during and after the Second World War ; later she became a dedicated anti-fascist . Until 1951 she attended the Elisabeth Granier girls' school (today divided into the Käthe Kollwitz school and Ricarda Huch school ) in Hanover, which she graduated without a high school diploma.

Theater and radio

She then completed a three-year training course at the State Academy for Music & Theater (today: University of Music, Theater and Media ) in Hanover and in 1954 was given a permanent position at the State Theater there . Here she stood on stage for the first time in the play Johannisnacht , and made the acquaintance of Hanns Lothar and Heinz Bennent . 1956–59 she worked at the Hildesheim City Theater (today: Theater for Lower Saxony ) before she was employed at the Dortmund City Theaters in 1959 . She was particularly successful here with her role as Saint Joan . Also in 1959, Ingund Mewes married and had their first daughter Dorothea.

She also received television offers and worked for WDR . In the following years she also took on tasks at ARD and Deutsche Welle and worked her way up to become the first female speaker in the current speaker service of WDR; She was also the first female commentary for the television magazine Monitor . She worked for radio until 1994, but was still involved in radio play productions for WDR until her retirement (with Renan Demirkan and Christian Brückner, among others ).

In 1962 she left her job at the theater in Dortmund and was now engaged at the Grenzlandtheater Aachen . In 1966, two years after the birth of their second daughter Christine, Ingund Mewes moved with her family to Porz and began working as a freelancer at the Cologne theater . Between 1968 and 1974 she was active as chairwoman of the Society for Politics and Education in Porz and was also a member of the cabaret Die Snobtimisten in Bensberg . Ingund Mewes also played in the world premiere of Views of a Clown at the Düsseldorf Theater in 1976 , where she made personal acquaintance with Annemarie and Heinrich Böll .

Political commitment

In the 1970s, Ingund Mewes began to get involved in the feminist movement in Cologne. In addition, Mewes, who said she had to have four abortions ("so that I almost died once"), actively opposed the ban on abortion under Section 218 of the Criminal Code and on July 19, 1971, together with 29 other women, brought 86,000 signatures Bonn to Justice Minister Gerhard Jahn , who, out of solidarity, launched the self-incriminating campaign We have aborted! had been collected against the ban. On October 5 and 6 of the same year, Ingund Mewes continued to take part in the political night prayer "YES to life, no to § 218" in the Antoniterkirche in Cologne and gave a speech on November 20, 1971, on the occasion of the Western Europe-wide campaign against abortion bans and for more women's rights to "Away with § 218" on Offenbachplatz Cologne.

Ingund Mewes divorced in 1974/75 and raised her daughters alone. In addition, she became increasingly involved in local politics and became the head of the class attendance at her daughters' comprehensive school . In this position, she campaigned against formaldehyde in school and was one of the initiators of the first long school strike .

Piccolo theater

In addition, Ingund Mewes took part in the independent children's and youth theater of the newly founded theater Comedia Colonia (today: Comedia Theater ), for example in 1983 in The Diary of Anne Frank . In 1985/86 she founded the Piccolo-Theater together with her daughter Dorothea Mewes, which they added “Mewes & Töchter” (based on the common name “... & Sons”). Later, her daughter Christine Wolff also supported the theater management.

The theater opened its program on February 22, 1986 with the staged reading Letters of the Scholl Siblings , which was created in collaboration with Inge Aicher-Scholl and was based on unpublished material from the family (premiered on May 8, 1985 in Comedia Colonia). Overall, the Piccolo saw itself as a “pacifist and feminist program theater” and its plays were primarily devoted to issues of moral courage , the Third Reich and the social situation of women.

Grave cemetery Melaten

For the productions The Daughters of the “Witches” by Ingund Mewes himself and Nur Kinder, Küche, Kirche by Franca Rame and Dario Fo , the Piccolo-Theater received the audience award of the SK Foundation for Culture . The piece no! by Dorothea Mewes on experiences of child abuse was also nominated for the 1995 theater award.

Ingund Mewes himself was also awarded the Inge von Bönninghausen “Shooting Star” Prize on March 8, 2000 for her life's work.

On June 19, 2004 she celebrated her 50th anniversary on stage and had her last public appearance in the theater.

Mewes died in 2005 at the age of 70 years to cancer and was at the Cologne Melaten Cemetery buried.

Works

While she was in charge of the Piccolo Theater, Ingund Mewes wrote the following plays:

• The daughters of the "witches" . Premiere: September 9th, 1987. Mewes played the role of Katharina Henot herself in the production of the world premiere . 1991 awarded the Cologne Theater Prize.
• WahnsinnsFrauen in collaboration with the ensemble. Premiere: October 22, 1993.
• Power women in collaboration with their daughter Dorothea Mewes. Premiere: July 28, 1998.

Ingund-Mewes-Platz initiative

The initiative launched by Cologne actor Gerd Buurmann in 2012 is committed to naming a lively, as yet unnamed, intersection of Ingund-Mewes-Platz in Cologne-Sülz , as its theater is on Zülpicher Straße, one of the intersecting streets , found.

literature

• Ursula Linnoff, Margit Stolzenburg: Unity of women? Mothers and Daughters in West and East . New life, Berlin 1995, ISBN 978-3-355-01449-6

Web links

• Piccolo Theater website
• Audio play database
• Ingund Mewes in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Raphaela Häuser: "Our greatest enemy is the church" In: philtrat. 52, April / May 2003. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Irene Franken: Ingund Mewes In: Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv, 2019. Retrieved on July 1, 2020.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ursula Linnoff, Margit Stolzenburg: Einig Frauenland? Mothers and Daughters in West and East . New Life, Berlin 1995, ISBN 978-3-355-01449-6 , pp. 187-204 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Susanne Kreitz: argumentative and not a bit quiet In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, June 15, 2004. Accessed July 1, 2020.
5. ↑ Ursula Linnoff, Margit Stolzenburg: Einig Frauenland? Mothers and Daughters in West and East . New Life, Berlin 1995, ISBN 978-3-355-01449-6 , pp. 201 .
6. ↑ Julia Hitz, MA: Aktion 218 In: Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv, 2019. Retrieved on July 1, 2020.
7. ↑ Irene Franken: Political night prayer on the subject of abortion In: Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv, 2019. Retrieved on July 1, 2020.
8. ↑ Frauke Mahr: Mewes, Ingund . In: Kevelaerer Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
9. ↑ Birte Hauke: “Wherever she was, there was also a place” In: Stadtrevue. 10, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
10. ↑ Gerd Buurmann: Ingund Mewes Platz In: Tapfer im Nirgendwo, 23 August 2012. Accessed on 1 July 2020.