2023-06-25 12:12:00
Comrades, we’re shooting a western!
“Blutsbrüder” on the Jonsdorf forest stage brings Gojko Mitic and Dean Reed together on the film set. Playing with the levels is as awesome as it is worth seeing.
By Marcel Pochanke
5 min. In the western play “Blutsbrüder” the material of a Defa film including film shooting comes to the Jonsdorf forest stage. Gojko Mitic and Harter Felsen are played by Marc Schützenhofer (left), Dean Reed and harmonica by Philipp Scholz. © Pawel Sosnowski
The residents of the Cheyenne Indian village, women and children, are struck down by the white men’s hail of bullets. Nobody is spared. Then the music ends. “Off!” shouts director Wolfgang Wallroth, whereupon women and children get up, dust themselves off and congratulate each other on the successful scene. A lot of what makes the current summer play of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater Görlitz/Zittau on the Jonsdorfer Waldbühne so unique and worth seeing is already in this opening scene, and therefore it should be revealed here.
There is the famous Sabine Krug in the role of the Defa director, who runs the production of “Blutsbrüder” resolutely and with pithy wit. She gets by far the biggest final applause at the premiere on Saturday and is even more celebrated by the audience than the supposed main actors Dean Reed and Gojko Mitic.
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There is the Indian Studies group from Radebeul, which always provides special moments with great interludes and small performances. Her boss Gundula, known as Powder Face, is played by Maria Weber as someone who knows how to assert oneself, especially in the GDR of the 1970s, where culture has to undergo a suspicious scrutiny in order to be allowed and to receive funds receive.
Western play as a film project on stage
The film production, for which the Indian camp dies on stage, has to cope with that, and that is the third coup of the “Blood Brothers”. Writing and directing a Western play in such a way that it is presented as a film project and switches back and forth between the Western plot and the events on the film set is daring. Can you manage to give both levels a common thread and not get too complicated for a summer theater? And how! Gero Vierhuff was also responsible for the text version and direction and has created a theater experience that is as subtle as it is humorous, for which the trip to the Zittau Mountains must definitely be recommended.
For the “Blood Brothers”, which are filmed here, Gojko Mitic and Dean Reed are the stars in front of the camera, just like in the GDR film original from 1975. Reed, played by Philipp Scholz, is the most complex and interesting role. The story of the American, who deliberately went to the socialist GDR out of bitterness regarding the actions of his country and capitalism, is wisely told briefly once more. Now he is living his dream in a supposedly better world and would like to make this perspective on the systems clear in the film as well. But the GDR film crew was by no means waiting for it, and Mitic also whispered annoyed that he owed his audience a good adventure film, nothing else. At the same time, this Reed is an artist who wants to be seen, who collects points with his charm as a US boy and thus hardly notices the dark side around him. Between riding performances, fight scenes and explosions, Scholz’ performance and direction reveal many facets that do not appear in the official narratives of the East and West systems.
Horses play too, comrade farmers, horses too! © GHT Görlitz-Zittau
The other, Gokjo Mitic, already gives an idea of who the boss is in the Defa Indian film during his performance, which is acclaimed by the audience. The role of Gojko is tailor-made for Marc Schützenhofer, as he can brilliantly combine two of his parade subjects: As Winnetou, he perfected the embodiment of the flagship Indian himself for many years on the Rathen rock stage. Language, attitude, look are amazingly reminiscent of TV idols like Pierre Briece or Gojko Mitic: “How long do we need to understand that the white man walks on crooked shoes?” he to the delight of the audience from the full. This humor is never flat or condescending.
Vierhuff’s text confidently navigates terrain that is not easy given the injustices committed once morest Native Americans and our contemporary discourses on how to deal with them, including the right language. Cliché traps abound, and Vierhoff enjoys stepping into them. Wallroth calls out, the clichés shown become part of the film shoot and the production makes fun of them. Or they are part of simple-minded worldviews that meet the same fate.
“And action!” Or “Off, off, off!” A Defa film is being shot on the Jonsdorf forest stage in the play “Blutsbrüder”. © GHT Görlitz-Zittau
Harmonica and Hard Rock
Roman Keller’s music plays a role here: while overly charged and emotional carpets of sound are often a nuisance on stage, they really come into play here in the western scenes, when the two heroes, Harmonika (Dean Reed/Philipp Scholz) and Harter Felsen, for example, meet (Gojko Mitic/Marc Schützenhofer) meet for the first time. Or when they fight their inevitable battle – first over a cheese sandwich, then in their wild west roles over life and death. This duel in the magnificent mountain scenery, crowned by a bird of prey circling overhead as if on cue, is gripping and enchantingly rehearsed. Then the opulent music stops, the actors take a break and the second strand of the story, that of shooting the film, continues.
In this, two Western spies (Martha Pohla, Paul-Antoine Nörpel) appear who want to prevent a GDR production from outperforming their Karl May films. Her plan to blow up the pyro camp for the film becomes apparent early on. The anticipation, especially among the younger audience, is correspondingly long for the moment when it “finally” cracks. The balance between surprise and fulfilled expectations of a summer theater on the forest stage is also right here. Among the surprises is the end of the love story between female lead Gisela Freudenberg (Aleksandra Kienitz) and Dean Reed. The great romance was indicated when the two kissed in the film. It gets longer and longer, and the audience bets on the moment when the inevitable will happen. And this expectation is fulfilled: “Off! Out!” shouts the director. The mood rises.
Again on July 1, 8 p.m. and July 2, 5 p.m. on the Jonsdorf forest stage.
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