Road trip through Heilbronn: Doga G”> Road trip through Heilbronn: Doga Grer is Kemal Arslan, the searching hero in the stage version of Cihan Acar’s novel “Hawaii”. Photo: Jochen Quast Photo: JochenQuast
When Cihan Acar’s debut novel was published in early 2020, the feuilletons outdid each other with hymns of praise. It’s not just the exotic name of Heilbronn’s eponymous problem district “Hawaii” that is causing enthusiasm in the rest of the republic. The sound is captivating as the young author tells the story of Kemal Arslan, who returns to his hometown, which some days smells like soup. After his dream of a professional soccer career was shattered following a car accident: snapshots like short cuts from the provinces, for the stage version of which the Heilbronn theater secured the world premiere rights.
Cinematically flowing changes of perspective
The premiere of “Hawaii” took place on Friday in the Groes Haus, directed by Nurkan Erpulat, who, together with dramaturg Andreas Frane, rewrote the 250-page novel into a two-and-a-half-hour play. Erpulat succeeds in creating a musical, downright choreographed production. The scenes are closely intertwined and the changes in perspective are cinematically fluid. And yet the road trip through Heilbronn is stagnant in some scenes. Where the novel picks up speed with slight laconicism and subliminal irony, a certain pathos slows it down on stage.
The excellent ensemble – most of them slip into several roles – is always on the move and the revolving stage (equipment: Gitti Scherer) creates new scenes and moods with sharp cuts.
Overlapping videos
It is seductively gripping how recorded and live videos (Bahadir Hamdemir) overlap and form the setting for the events of the three nights and two days told. Avenue, Wollhaus, shopping store, folk festival on the Theresienwiese, Creme 21, beer hall, Laube and once more and once more the Hawaii, but also the garden of a villa in the east of Heilbronn are scenes, a Turkish wedding in a hall in the industrial area, a strip club, the train station.
Erpulat, who staged here before in 2009 and is part of the management team at the Gorki Theater Berlin, may have cut back the sidelines, but follows the core of the story, which he only occasionally embellishes with other local specialties. For example, with reference to wealthy millionaires such as the founders of the Schwarz Group, who make Heilbronn one of the cities with the highest average income. Despite strong social differences.
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Where worlds of life collide
Guest actor Doga Grer shows Kemal with stunning impartiality as a reserved outsider who feels at home neither in the Turkish nor in the German community. Grer calmly plays the emotional keyboard of the 21-year-old German-Turk Kemal, looks from his perspective at the province, in which cultural worlds collide and a fascist militia (“Heilbronn, wake up”) and a nationalist Turkish gang openly fight in the streets tipping over into loud clichés on stage.
Against the backdrop of Heilbronn’s local color, the director, like the novel, blurs facts and fiction, which is what makes the evening so charming and atmospheric. The meter-high letters HNX stand for Heilbronx and are a projection surface and beacon for Kemal’s homelessness. In addition, the music from different cultures can be heard from the live band led by Michael Haves. The basic theme of “Hawaii”, a coming of age story, might also be set elsewhere.
“Hawaii” neither wants to denounce nor polarize
Kemal is driven by the longing to find his place. “I knew exactly where I wanted to be. A place where I can be who I am.” A utopia beyond cultural affiliations. Because despite all the exaggeration of some figures: “Hawaii” neither wants to denounce nor to polarize.
Burak Hoffmann and Ali Turp, also guests, juggle role clichés and the reality of their dubious types with timing and remarkable body awareness. In general, one likes to watch the ensemble play cheerfully. Delicious the middle-class mendacious boredom that Gabriel Kemmether, as a drunken host and architect from the east of Heilbronn, takes to extremes. Great is also the club scene with pounding music, full of poetry Kemal’s encounters with his ex-girlfriend Sina (Lisa Schwarzer). Lots of applause for a stimulating evening, which – if dramaturgically streamlined – would have had more explosive power.
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The author: Cihan Acar, born near Heilbronn in 1986, grew up in Oedheim, studied law in Heidelberg. He also worked as a journalist and author. He wrote the non-fiction books “111 Reasons to Love Galatasaray” and “111 Reasons to Love Hip-Hop” and reported for the dpa from Turkey, among other things. After lengthy stays in Istanbul and Berlin, he returned to complete his studies. Cihan Acar lives with his family in Heilbronn.