Schön Schön Schön continues in rep at the Kammerspiele der Josefstadt, Vienna throughout the 2014/15 season
Schön Schön Schön continues in rep at the Kammerspiele der Josefstadt, Vienna throughout the 2014/15 season.
Following the success of Eh wurscht (2010) and Forever Young (2013) at the Theater in der Josefstadt, Franz Wittenbrink returns with another evening which combines musical theatre and straight theatre and opens the new season at the Kammerspiele der Josefstadt.
The show tells the various stories of customers at a ladies’ gym – from losing weight to struggles with men – all told with from one song to the next, featuring all styles of music: pop songs, show-tunes, traditional music. Many of these songs, newly arranged by Wittenbrink himself (who also directs the show), are presented with new lyrics by Peter Ahorner.
The cast consists of Ruth Brauer-Kvam, Marika Lichter, Ann Mandrella, Sona MacDonald, Isabel Weicken, Ljubisa Lupo Grujcic and Martin Niedermair. I particularly enjoyed Weicken as crazy yoga-obsessed Charlotte (she performs a wonderful solo ballad entitled ‘Ich will frei sein’, originally ‘Maybe This time’ from Cabaret).
Brauer-Kvam is wonderful on all levels, especially her duet with Niedermair ‘Money’ from Cabaret as well as her solo ‘Heidenröslein’, originally by Schubert set to the words of Goethe.
Lichter impresses vocally in ‘Ana der aufpasst auf mi’ (‘Someone to Watch Over Me’). Her rendition of ‘Proud Mary’ with the rest of the cast is strong too, but I think she needs to watch her high notes sometimes.
Mandrella is particularly strong with a French accent as Babette. I thoroughly enjoyed her performances of ‘Bitte geh nicht jetzt’ (‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’) and the duet with Niedermair (‘Something Stupid’).
Niedermaier is vocally strong throughout the entire evening too, both on his own (such as in his rendition of the Georg Danzer song ‘Olle Weiber san Gfraßta’) and in the group numbers.
Sona MacDonald is divine as an actor and singer. Her duet with Lichter, ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’, is probably one of the highlights of the show.
While unlike the rest of the cast, Ljubisa Lupo Grujcic isn’t a trained singer, he delivers a solid performance throughout, playing a variety of roles including the cleaning man and the promotions guy. Vocally he is very strong in the Monica Reyes song ‘Schmusen’.
The cast is accompanied by a five-piece band consisting of Franz Wittenbrink/Christian Frank on piano, Rens Newland/Christoph Helm on guitar, Herb Berger/Ilse Riedler on reeds, Andy Mayerl/Tibor Kövesdi on bass and Klaus Perez-Salado/Bernd T. Rommel on drums.
Wittenbrink, along with lyricist Ahorner, musical director Christian Frank, set designer Miriam Busch and costume designer Nini von Selzam manage to create a wonderful show with a brilliant cast who sing well individually as well as an ensemble (particularly the a cappella version of the Grönemeyer hit ‘Männer and Caipirinha’, originally ’Rum and Coca-Cola’).
The way Wittenbrink combines different musical styles and arranges them in completely different ways to how we know them is wonderful. He has created a new style of musical theatre here and I hope to see more of it in future.
Ludovico Lucchesi Palli
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