Birthday greeting: Christine Schorn on her 80th: “… just stood there”

When one of her characters pouts or gives a very specific grin, you never know whether the woman is now showing a weapon or is disarming herself. Over the years, this artist has found wonderful whimsicality in her play, sometimes a protective armor-like unworldliness – as tragic as it is flirtatiously glittering. The beautiful snout as your favorite mask. Lifelike. Something glimmers in Christine Schorn’s acting eyes, which film director Lothar Warneke put into words: “She just stood there and the deepest essence of a human being became visible, the infinite possibilities that want to unfold and the tragedy of preventing them from unfolding. «

In 1982, Warneke made the touching Defa film “The Uncertainty”, the drama of a woman suffering from cancer, and what he said about his leading actress went back to one of her great early roles in the 70s – in one of the most magical productions ever seen German Theater gave: Federico García Lorca’s “Doña Rosita remains single or The Language of Flowers”, dreamed up for the scenery by director Siegfried Höchst and set designer Horst Sagert. The Schorn back then as a duality: witch and saint.

The actress, born in Prague in 1944, was initially a laundress and saleswoman – she experiments with stubbornness and awkward charm in her roles. She practices the art of waiting and feeling with merciless patience. In Viktor Rosow’s “On the Road” (directed by Hans Diether Meves and Friedo Solter), Schorn, who was still almost a student, entered the stage of the Deutsches Theater Berlin in 1964 at the age of 20. Dieter Mann as the Soviet roadie Vova, she as the stubborn Sima. So hands-on in her wide skirt, and not at all squeamish. Hey, where is the way to life? Always go straight ahead! That was once.

The two had the quality of a dream couple. Just as Schorn formed a formative DT duo with Kurt Böwe many times later, for example in Tankred Dorst’s “Herr Paul” or in Fontane’s correspondence with his wife. She: determined by a modest nature. He: the pure determiner nature. Böwe unleashed Schorn; Schorn reined in Böwe. Everything is carefully minimal and yet like a primal force.

Decades of DT! So: legendary theater. She has also appeared in many cinema and television films (“The Third”, “Education before Verdun”, “The Woman and the Stranger”, “November Child”, “Life is not for cowards”). Her characters are teased – but radiate tough dignity. Still in the sobs of defeat, a sniffling defiance. Or an almost mannered whine. Or a self-confidence that may seem borrowed at first, but emptiness won’t harm the women of the Schorn. Outwardly.

She may call for love and kindness on stage or in front of the camera in a very grumpy, very migraine way – but she calls life to order immediately and unsentimentally. No, she doesn’t call, rather she whispers. Big puffs and big bows don’t stand a chance. If there were a book about her, the title could be: “Please Not So Loud.” She knows what she can do, but she doesn’t talk about it. This Thursday the wonderful Christine Schorn turns 80 years old.