“Heavenly Times” at the Fritz Rémond Theater in Frankfurt
Heavenly earthly: girlfriends united at the bedside
Image: Martin Sigmund
One is dead, the other heartbroken and die for different reasons in a private hospital. The Fritz Rémond Theater in Frankfurt makes a revue of afflictions and longings that is truly heavenly.
frankfurt ⋅ After the climacteric comes old age, then death. That’s what the medical community says. In the Rémond Theater this means: After the revue “Hot Times” now the revue “Heavenly Times”, or: “Playing the harp on cloud nine”. At least that’s how the Berlin playwright Tilmann von Blomberg has his recently deceased “housewife” say hello to the friends she left behind. The three are heartbroken. There they are now sitting in an expensive private clinic: the “career woman” to be optimized, the “noble” to have Alzheimer’s harbingers cured, and the “boy” to give birth to her second child. Only the easy-going Doris with a BMI of 53.3 is no longer from this world: a cardiac arrest swept her away. Now the career-obsessed Gabi should accompany her friend to the cooling chamber: “Growing old is not for cowards,” says the subtitle.
These four women do it so well on stage that as a spectator you have to fear burnout rather than corona infection. Especially since only about a third of the auditorium was occupied. Those who didn’t come missed a lot. Not just the brightly colored clinic design by stage designer Cary Gayler in yellow, blue and green, but also the author’s punch line banter and the vital presence of the dancing, singing and playing ladies. Franziska Becker’s career woman seemed to be cantering through a manic phase before looking at her friend’s corpse changed everything. They couldn’t have known that Doris was ghosting across the stage next to her in her nightgown. Was it Angelika Mann or Iris Schumacher? Three roles were cast twice, but a current evening list was not included in the program booklet.