Torsten Krug /// director / singer / author

Urfaust

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Director: Torsten Krug
Set and costumes: Jan Steigert
Dramaturgy: Silvia Giese

Theater Annaberg Buchholz
April 2009

With:
Tim Osten (Fist)
Sven Zinkan (Mephisto)
Maria Richter (Margarethe)
Gisa Kummerling (Marthe)
Nenad Zanic (Student, Brander, Evil Spirit, Faust College)
Thomas Tucht (Wagner, Frog, Evil Spirit, Faust College)
Stefanie Mörke (Earth Spirit, Lieschen, Evil Spirit)
Udo Prucha (Siebel, Evil Spirit, Faust College)
Gerd Schlott (Alten, Evil Spirit, Faust College)
Gabi Kümmerling (Gretchen's mother, Faust College)
Marie-Luis Pühlhorn (Lieschen, Evil Spirit, Faust College)

The devil as sovereign
Premiere cheers for Goethe's "Urfaust" in the Theater Annaberg-Buchholz"

applause and flowers. The birthday party is approaching its climax. The guests remain devout. But when Faust steps to the microphone - speechlessness. Then very hesitantly, after several approaches: "I have, oh...". His listeners don't understand anything, but the audience in the Annaberg Theater does. Just as Marcel Reich-Ranicki unexpectedly slapped his bewildered worshipers in the face with a media scolding at the television awards ceremony in October 2008, the Faust well-wishers were also completely unexpected. The honored scientist, the luminary, the idol - a single doubt.
Goethe's "Urfaust" is back in the Ore Mountains. In 1993, the ensemble had already selected the dramatic fragment for the opening of the jubilee season celebrating the 100th anniversary of the theatre. Premiere celebrations now also on Sunday evening for the new interpretation.
The Easter walk, no, there was no such thing, even if it would have fitted into the calendar. The "Urfaust" also doesn't have many other scenes that round off the story in part 1 of the "Faust" tragedy. And so this early work, which was first performed 55 years after Goethe's death, is a rather brittle affair, with abrupt changes of scene. But director Torsten Krug counteracts these deficits with a wonderfully three-dimensional character drawing, and Jan Steigert has come up with a multifunctional folding backdrop for this.
Without a doubt, Faust's opponent Mephisto must be named first. Sven Zinkan is the sovereign of the evening, which was clearly honored by the audience. The way he sneaks around his victim Faust, gets him around to leave his study, in which he can do no more than stir up dust, and plunge into full life, that has just the right amount of.
Hypocrisy, smoothness and arrogance, so that it doesn't become cliché. At first he still bends down, but soon he is confident in the upright gait, and he is not only a head taller than his pupil Faust. The devil knows about his superiority and can steer the fortunes with relish.
Tim Osten's Faust is a procrastinator, squirming like a worm in his anguish. What's the point of bothering when the world isn't recognizable after all? If this wretch didn't have Mephisto's advice, he'd be dead here already. The passion for Gretchen pulls him out, and he feels life. But he fails again, across the board. Unfortunately, Osten does not play freely, is constantly so tense that you hardly take his fist for what he actually is - the main character. Maria Richter, on the other hand, is a very touching Gretchen, youthful, fresh, serious and absolutely moving in the mad scene in the dungeon. While she herself is still reflecting on her guilt for the death of her own child and mother, Faust's rescue attempt fails and he again staggers after his seducer.
People in their limitations, in their fallibility, that's what Torsten Krug tells with his production, which he leaves in the language of Goethe, but otherwise brings far into the present. convincing.

Uta Trinks, Chemnitz Free Press
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