Burgtheater Vienna

Alaaf and Helau! Humor with the enema

Regina Enskat from the original Cologne cast, standing in for Regina Fritsch(Bild: Thomas Aurin)

Molière's "The Imaginary Sick Man" premiered at the Akademietheater for the finale of the inaugural season of Stefan Bachmann's new Burgdirektion. The result was drastic. 

To be happy here, you have to have been a guest on the Cologne Millowitsch stage or at least shouted "Alaaf" during the Rose Monday parade. German humor, as unleashed by the Swiss Bachmann in a cross-linguistic effort at the Vienna Akademietheater, is certainly special. In fact, our favorite neighbors scattered around the room hooted with delight. While we had to keep our bland eyes from closing with strict instructions.

What happened? The new Burg director has brought along his celebrated Cologne Molière clown play, with the original title hypochondriac Rosa Enskat standing in, as Regina Fritsch has fallen ill in real life. The rewrite leaves only the skeleton of the original. Instead, she attacks the woken theatrical spirit in a commendable but point-deficient manner and indulges in the anal phase, making rich use of enema and douching. Among the newly engaged actors, Paul Basonga as daughter Angelique develops the most demonic, destructive playfulness. The otherwise well-started direction still needs to work on the classics.