He’s young and looks even younger – that’s the concentrated content of Christoph Fritz’ previous cabaret career. On September 27, the 28-year-old with the black humor is now bringing his second program “Tenderness” to the stage in the Wiener Stadtsaal. This time it should be regarding “searching and finding proximity in unexpected places”, explained the native of Lower Austria before the premiere in the APA interview.
Unexpected places – according to the announcement, this includes the urologist’s practice. What does that mean exactly? Fritz doesn’t want to reveal too much. “I find this fear of men before the urologist’s check-up a little unfounded,” said the cabaret artist, who feels “embraced” by the audience on a good evening, in the usual dry manner. The cabaret artist, who is now approaching 30, no longer wants to address his young appearance this time.
Fritz, on the other hand, wants to remain true to his style, but also wants to break out of his role from time to time. A “further development, but not a 180-degree turnaround,” he explains. “A little more personal, a little more real”, “tenderness” is also, with “a little less distance to the audience”. He wants to invite them to watch him think a little during the presentation of the “auto-fictional” program.
Fritz made his first appearance in 2016 – in English – in an Australian pub, in 2017 he became part of the ensemble of the “Long Night of Cabaret”. With the first solo program “The Youngest Face” he toured the German-speaking cabaret stages from 2018, playing the role of a young, insecure man with perfectly timed punchlines. For this he not only received the compliment of a man in his mid-fifties, who explained to him that he had never laughed so much before, but also the sponsorship award of the Austrian Cabaret Prize. “I think I unwittingly presented myself as a newcomer,” said Fritz when asked what made him so successful, referring to the title of his first program. But there is also a lot of luck involved.
It was clear relatively early on that the first program would be followed by a second. Colleagues confirmed that the second was the most difficult. “The first time you have a certain naivety, which is somehow helpful,” said Fritz, this naive approach is “a bit lost” following the first program. He also already had material before he decided to write his first program, “so it was more relaxed.”
So now he is “no longer a blank slate.” The audience has expectations that there is more potential for failure. In the end, the fear of not having enough ideas was unfounded: “The difficulty was rather choosing the right things and making the program varied and dense.”
Fritz not only wants to try out the cabaret stage, but also other creative genres in the future. The 28-year-old had his first film role in Helmut Köpping and Michael Ostrowski’s “Der Onkel – The Hawk”, which was released this year, in which he played a bank clerk. He might imagine taking acting lessons, maybe writing a screenplay someday. In the new program he wants to “play more and fill out the role more” – but it will not be a role cabaret.
(The interview was conducted by Ines Garherr/APA)
(SERVICE – “Tenderness” by Christoph Fritz, premiere on September 27 at 7.30 p.m. in the Stadtsaal, Mariahilfer Straße 81, Vienna 6, https://stadtsaal.com/. Further dates: https://christophfritz.at/)
