Tyrolean folk plays: A strong piece

I only leave the city of Innsbruck for very special adventures. For golfing in Mieming, for hiking in the Sellraintal, but also for the theater in Telfs. Recently, I was able to sneak into one of the last rehearsals of the Tyrolean folk plays. And because all performances of "Ich bleibe hier" there are already completely sold out, I want to report about my visit here in all subtlety. In the meantime, I have already been there for another play, and this much can be revealed in advance: You have to see everything there anyway.

In front of the Pizzeria Capello, I turn on the spot, searching. It should be somewhere around here. After a few steps it is, but in the backyard, an ancient wooden building with creaking stairs to the upper floor. As early as 1569, a gambling house was mentioned here in Telfs, behind the former Bergant bakery; the historic facade is now probably firmly in Italian hands. The Kranewitterstadl, on the other hand, has remained true to its role, here the floor still creaks just as it did back then, the dark roof beams also speak volumes, only the spotlights are new. They mercilessly heat the heavy thunderstorm air, the tension here must be released at any moment. The ensemble has also long since taken up their positions, unusually close, so completely without a curtain. An old table, a few chairs, nothing else.

Spherical sounds surround the quivering monologue of the protagonist Trina (violently staged by Wiltrud Stieger). It is as if she were writing a letter to her lost daughter, staggering through memories that some would probably rather forget. I stay here: At the Telfer Kulturbühne, the novel by Marco Balzano becomes a nerve-wracking folk play. Director Lorenz Leander Haas traces the wartime fate of a family in Graun, the very idyllic South Tyrolean settlement where today only the church tower juts out of the reservoir. "If you don't deal with politics, politics will deal with you," husband Erich (a masterful Edwin Hochmuth) escalates, anger and resistance burning inside him. Trina also teaches German secretly at first, until the love of her life, Barbara, is caught, beaten up and banished. Daughter Marika is kidnapped by uncle and aunt to Germany, the only son Michael a Nazi.

Why does life necessarily mean moving forward, the narrator wants to know. (The actress herself comes from Transylvania, a German wartime exile in Romania, where dictator Orban recently made nationalist headlines again) Eleonore Bürcher plays the grandmother and knows the answer: The Lord God put the eyes in the front of our heads, and that's exactly where we should look in life, otherwise we would probably be fish. And perhaps because the fish in the water are silent today, the play must tell the story of Graun, dare the painful look into the past.

Whether Lorenz Haas is a clairvoyant, the radio present wants to know after the stage play. The artist waved him off and then had to admit that he had found the stage set of table and chairs in exactly the same way in the museum in Graun. Together with the ensemble, they visited the reservoir and traced the history there, but it wasn't pretty. But you have to give the fiery red Mr. Haas credit for an extraordinary eye, because in Telfs he puts a horror on stage that could hardly be more topical: It's war again.

(Final image by Victor Malyshev)