Theater: What rhymes with vomit?

Can you actually say that – the German equivalent of “cunt”? On stage? In any case, it’s pretty banging in the venerable Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, where the Broadway hit “The Shadow Presidents” by Selina Fillinger celebrated its German-language premiere last Thursday.

The bad word is also the initial spark for considerable complications in the White House. The President said it. And everyone heard it: the press, the diplomats and even the president’s wife. The nameless head of state explained her supposed absence by saying that she had “a sneaky morning.”

“We’ve got this under control,” says Jean (Josefine Israel), the president’s press secretary, who can neither be seen here (except in the form of two legs) nor heard and has the distinctive features of various real-life US presidents. However, Jean is completely wrong in her assessment.

In the next two hours, a high-speed spectacle unfolds in the rooms of the White House, initiated by the president, but then kept going by the seven women who – as the play’s overly long subtitle makes clear – are behind this “big idiot”. and “trying to keep him alive.” In addition to the press secretary, these include the first lady Margaret (Sachiko Hara), chief of staff Harriet (Sandra Gerling), secretary Stephanie (Angelika Richter), the flirt Bee (Linn Reusse), the president’s sister Bernadette (Bettiny Stucky) and the journalist Chris ( Amal Keller).

“Shadow Presidents” is a farce, i.e. a comedy of exaggerations, improbabilities and absurdities. And even though the inspiration for »POTUS«, as the original title is, comes from the political circus in the United States, the hype that Claudia Bauer has set up for the German-language premiere is easy to understand. The pace is high right from the start, the hairstyles and costumes (Vanessa Rust) are bright and stark, the language is coarse to rude, and the actresses’ movement repertoire is harshly mannered.

Where the premiere, as far as can be judged from the video snippets circulating, is fast-paced but visually rather conventional, Bauer goes a few steps further and also uses his theater director’s bag of tricks. Is that perhaps too much of a good thing? At least the evening cannot maintain the high pace for the entire duration.

Again and again, Bauer creates magnificent scenes such as secretary Stephanie’s involuntary drug trip or the tactical maneuver of the seemingly naive bee who mistakenly sexually pleases two veterans, as well as the singing performances and the performances of the chain-smoking presidential sister Bernadette (Bettina Stucky), who has just escaped from prison ) are on point. But every now and then the furious septet runs out of dramaturgical steam.

Maybe the rate is just too high? Is it the piece itself? Or is it the clash between Broadway and the German state theater, which is known – and rightly so – to be alienated from overly classical forms, boulevards and plain entertainment.

What, by the way, seems to be changing in recent years. People are looking towards Broadway more often than they were ten years ago. Theater as a moral institution in a different sense? As an entertaining counterpoint to the cruelty of the world outside?

At least “The Shadow Presidents” is not escapist entertainment, but has a clearly feminist message: Women can do it. When they get together. Whereby: The involuntary attack on male dominance via a suffragette bust fails. And in the end the patriarchal power relations are the same. And the question lingers as to whether a woman in the Oval Office would fundamentally change anything.

Next performances: April 17th, 30th and May 5th
www.schauspielhaus.de