89. “Grandmother”

A comedy in four acts by Max Dreyer
Performance at the Lessing Theater, Berlin

I have obviously misjudged Max Dreyer so far. When his comedy "In Behandlung" was performed last year, I still thought he had artistic aims. At the time, the trivial jokes and farcical exaggerations seemed to illuminate something like an artistic problem. Grandma" teaches me that Max Dreyer does not want to be taken as an artist at all. He wants to amuse a theater audience for two hours and a half, as Schönthan, Kadelburg and other non-poets want to do. If you only know that, then it's good. You act accordingly and make no false claims. Why should one say of a droll snack that it is literarily worthless? Because Max Dreyer wants to bring nothing more than droll jokes, and he has succeeded in doing so excellently. The fact that a seemingly stubborn bachelor rants about women, calls them "weak-minded", even "criminal", that he sets up a home in which there is not a single female servant because the man once had misfortune when he went out on his own, is the kind of thing that makes you think: I must have heard that somewhere before. It goes without saying - according to theatrical technique - that a crowd of women then invades his womanizing milieu, just as it goes without saying that several marital bonds are formed in this milieu and that the misogynist finally kisses, hearts, marries and resolves not to remain without offspring. This "plot" contains a lot of banal but laugh-out-loud exaggerations. Max Dreyer has provided an excellent script for the actors, who were able to develop all their skills with a wealth of nuances. Franz Guthery portrayed the blustering, ranting, boozing, gorging, misogynistic bachelor, who finally allows himself to be smacked and stroked, as the writer of the text obviously intended. I assume that he thought: I am writing a role that a good actor can make something of. Hedwig Niemann-Raabe, who as the widow Mathilde has to "treat" the misogynist, was once again what she has always been: a great actress. I could only say good things about the other actors. All this means no more than that the Lessing Theater could put on good plays if it had them. Good plays, where are you? You will not be prevented from coming into your own in this theater. Shouldn't there be something that finally comes from a real living poet? Are all poets dead? I don't think so. They will come, and then the Lessing Theater will belong to the living. After all, we are talking about living poets! Max Dreyer may be alive, but a poet ... well...