Theatre in the Courtyard – Like a proper hero

Gustav Kühne (Roland Ruppel) is a bank robber. But his is also a man of principles. “Take what you need, but don’t steal beyond your means” he tells his daughters Hannelore (Mehtap Burnaz) and Margit (Alexandra Struck) who help him with his schemes. In fact, the whole family is in on it, with once exception: his sister-in-law Helene (Barbara Semeras) although she also helps him unwittingly at times.

It is his wife Roswitha (Anna Altheim) who is left waiting for them to come home and to face the police when they come knocking at the door in the middle of the night. Not only does she have to stop the police discovering where her husband and daughters has been, she has to stop Helene saying anything as well.

This almost farcical comedy has been playing to sold out houses for the past weeks at the Alt Orschel “Straußwirtschaft” – a bar and restaurant in a courtyard just off the market square in Oberursel, with this week being the final week.

In comparison to other larger productions, this is a smaller affair with the audience sitting close to the stage, only a handful of actors and simple scenery. But even then, the courtyard offers a number of entrances and exits, some of which require the actors to pass through the audience, but the comedy is very much in the situations and the dialogue.

Playing the police commissioner is none other than local reporter Beppo Bachfischer (who is usually on the other side of the camera lens), and his assistant played by Margit Altheim. She is rather slow in the note taking department, but he is sure that Gustav is behind one particular robbery and visits him every year on the anniversary of it taking place to try and catch him out. What he doesn’t know is that the loot never left the bank. Instead Gustav just “transferred” it from the safe to a deposit box.

But all the same, Gustav is so worried that he will be found out, that he makes a deal with God that if he doesn’t get caught then he will not rob another bank for the next 20 years.

Suffice to say that the second half begins 20 years later…

The 160-strong audience were certainly having a good time and a good laugh, accompanied by the apple-based specialities including large jugs (Bembel) of apple wine.

The final two performances are already sold out, but at the time of writing there were tickets for Thursday, 18th July, 2013 still available.