By SUSANNE LENZ
\nBerliner Zeitung, 17.6.2016<\/p>\n
The apple never falls far from the tree. As this proverb says, children take after their parents. That\u2019s good, when the parents are extremely talented, have strong characters or great beauty. But what if they don\u2019t? When Walter visits his grandmother, she welcomes him with the words: \u201cYou are becoming like your father.\u201d In response, Walter smashes some jars with grandma\u2019s homemade jam.<\/p>\n
To take after his dad, it\u2019s quite a controversial matter, because his dad is in prison. The play \u201cSecrets\u201d deals with families of people in jail – with their wives, but, first and foremost, with their children. Approximately 100 000 children in Germany have incarcerated fathers. Or incarcerated mothers; although this relatively seldom happens. Only five per cent of people in prison are female. \u201cCo-convicted\u201d was the working title of the play – and it really describes such girls and boys. The scene with Walter and his grandmother illustrates their dilemma: how does one behave with a figure of identification who is a convicted criminal?<\/p>\n
School children, who have gathered in the Studio space of the family center FEZ are not quiet. Even when the light goes out, they are still whispering and laughing. In the next moment Walter starts to speak and gets everyone\u2019s attention. The teenager has just changed his school – for the second time already. \u201eWhere is your dad? \u201c, his new classmates ask him. \u201eRan off with another woman\u201c, says Walter. David Knopp plays his role convincingly angry and at the same time tormented. Walter\u2019s mother instructed him to answer in this way. However \u2013 as it always happened before: in every new place, in every new school \u2013 at some point everyone knows the truth. Will they have to escape again and hide in another place? Moving boxes, which make the simple scenery of the play, symbolize their defense strategy, which is basically an avoidance strategy and which always fails. The truth follows them like a young dog, Walter\u2019s mother says (Christine Roller).<\/p>\n
The text from director Monika Dobrowlanska is distilled through documented material as well as two books of young adult fiction on the same topic: \u201cJust call me Super\u201d by Reinhold Ziegler and \u201cMom in jail\u201d by Maja Gerber-Hess. The second main character of the play is Elfi, whose mother killed her boss. Elfi\u2019s case shows how the world reacts to such situations. She is not allowed to spend her vacations with her best friend any more \u2013 the parents of that girl won\u2019t allow it. Elfi has suddenly become a bad influence in their eyes. She is ashamed. Mirja Henning portrays her Elfi as a person in silent despair. \u201cSecrets\u201d is a realistic, social theater, which is directed at teenagers from the age of 13, but it also let adults learn about the urgent needs of the co-convicted children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By SUSANNE LENZ Berliner Zeitung, 17.6.2016 The apple never falls far from the tree. As this proverb says, children take after their parents. That\u2019s good, when the parents are extremely talented, have strong characters or great beauty. But what if they don\u2019t? When Walter visits his grandmother, she welcomes him with the words: \u201cYou are becoming like your father.\u201d In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12176,"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12175\/revisions\/12176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multiculturalcity.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}