Closed for wealth (Tankred Dorst)
A comedy by Tankred Dorst , which premiered on March 14, 1998 under the direction of Alexander Lang at the Residenztheater in Munich , is closed because of wealth .
As if won, the huge lottery win by Rosa and Max Gallenz melted away. The couple laughed tears.
content
Max Gallenz nailed the door of his little grocery store. He describes the business task on a cardboard sign on the shop door in calligraphy as "Closed due to wealth". After the luck mentioned above, he and his wife Rosa own eleven million. With the cash, packed in four suitcases, the rampant spending of money is practiced and finally mastered in such a way that half a million debts have accrued.
The couple has no shortage of desires: stand in the car stopping ban and pay with a laugh, buy a fur coat for twenty thousand marks in the middle of summer, get into the armaments business, beat up an investment advisor (see below) and pay him compensation for pain and suffering, and get a liveried chauffeur Have a drive to friends in Fürth and show the banknotes in the four suitcases. In addition, Rosa Gallenz, who has remained childless, wants to be artificially fertilized in America.
In the past, the store was essentially just about choosing between Bockwurst and Currywurst . But money opens up horizons. A concert grand was purchased. The purchase of a pianist is being considered.
The piece is more than slapstick. The student Ilse, for example, one of the last customers, also withdrew all her money. The amount, however, is very far below the million mark. In contrast to the two successful lottery players, Ilse calculated everything exactly. As soon as her withdrawn money is used up, she will hang herself. To do this, the suicide chooses the inside of Gallenzen's new large black closet, of all things. The piece of furniture adorns the new home of the two lottery winners - an old train station building converted into living space. The hotel suite had become too small for the many luxury items that had been purchased. Incidentally, with the purchased junk, even the domicile station hall is gradually littered.
When Max Gallenz was nailing down his shop, Heiner Mehlhorn had smelled the millions and made a long neck. Tankred Dorst does not give Mr. Mehlhorn the floor, but lists him in the personal register as an "unpleasant person". The bad character of Mehlhorn is involuntarily revealed by his mother.
Apart from Ilse, who wanted to quickly buy a raisin snail for Anni Schlee when the gate closed, there is also a good person in the piece - Anni Schlee. This woman, who Tankred Dorst also does not allow, was the only one who wished the two winners a safe trip. Grotesque: Another loyal customer, the old woman Olga Gereck - always with her dead sister in tow - had, even when the gate was closing, peeked by and admired the happiness - so much. Max Gallenz had given the East Prussian two hundred as a gift. The taxi driver Norach, eager for sales, wants to do his business with this trip. But the millionaire Max Gallenz has not completely lost common sense. In clear moments, the lottery winner has the sympathy of the viewer - for example, when he lets the entrepreneurial Norach down. It is Norach who, for some inexplicable reason, introduces a young woman - the alleged bookseller is called Coca - to the Gallenzens. This lady with relatives in Valparaíso exposes Max Gallenz as an inheritance stalker. Max chases away the waiter Axel, her friend, at the same time. In general, the amount of money magically attracts the strangest strangers. This is how a photographer appears. Picky in his choice of motif, he disdains taking photos of the two lottery winners, who seem far too mundane, and concentrates on such snapshots as Ilse dangling from a rope in the large closet. Or the waiter Axel admits the alleged bookseller Coco privately to an unmotivated murder. With the tip of a hammer, he exposed the victim's brain. Or the absurd travel plans. Coco wants to go to Stromboli . Max would have liked to sit on the volcano, but Rosa insists on the flying visit to Fürth. It was Coco who had persuaded the Gallenzens to use the station concourse as a living room. The investment advisor Mr. Zwick wants in vain to move the winning couple into a villa. But the former customers of the Gallenzens are not entirely normal either. Ms. Olga Gereck, for example, pulls her deceased "sister by the hair".
In any case, the piece ends like this: Max Gallenz makes his new furniture short and sweet. The waiter Axel comes and burns the remaining cash. A boy is throwing salt.
Productions
- 2003 Full moon theater (PDF; 302 kB)
reception
- Kässens calls the play a satire on a capitalist society that is about cashing.
- Till Seiler on March 17, 1998 in the " Berliner Zeitung ": Closed because of wealth
literature
Text output
- Tankred Dorst, collaboration with Ursula Ehler: Closed because of wealth. A metaphysical comedy. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1998 (1st edition). 110 pages, ISBN 3-518-40952-2 .
- Closed for wealth. A metaphysical comedy pp. 205–262 in Tankred Dorst. The joy of life and other pieces. Collaboration with Ursula Ehler . Edition 7 (content: The legend of poor Heinrich . What should we do . Harry's head . Closed because of wealth. Big scene by the river . The joy of life . Kupsch ). Epilogue: Wend Kässens. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002 (1st edition), without ISBN, 396 pages (edition used).
Secondary literature
- Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Ed.): Text + criticism Issue 145: Tankred Dorst . Richard Boorberg Verlag, Munich, January 2000, ISBN 3-88377-626-2
- Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature . German Authors A-Z . Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 , p. 126, left column
Web links
- Video, October 2010, performance of the theater group " Ratten 07 " in the ACUD -Theater Berlin