Comedy Is Actually Very Macho Driven.

Machos Auf Eis - Komödie Kassel, January 10th, 2015

A new year, new shows to discover.

Just 10 days after seeing Manuel Ettelt in >>"Landeier" in Bielefeld I got to see him in his next show "Machos Auf Eis" leaving the other show early to take over a part with the original cast guy leaving due to other commitments.
He had his premiere on the Thursday,the 8th and on Saturday I was off to Kassel for a 5pm matinee.

Advertised as a karaoke comedy the story is rather simple:

On a hot Saturday night in July, Adrian, the just wedded husband, escapes the wedding celebrations in a restaurant hiding in a former cold storage room.
A restaurant staff member, Sven, soon to be unemployed as the restaurant is to close just on that night, enters, to dispose some food when somehow the door shuts - without any doorknob inside to open the door.

Stuck they shout for help and are heard by the dense Sandro, DJ Sandro, to be more precise a karaoke DJ and coincidentally the brother of the bride.
But him being also rather clumsy instead of helping them to get out the three get locked up and since all remaining guests have just left they fear to having to stay here till Tuesday when some craftsmen are to come to refit the place for a new food place to open there.
Eventually a fourth guy, Oliver, a womanizer and a**ehole par excellence, ends up with them and all four try to make the best out of it including, since DJ Sandro has his karaoke equipment with him, entertaining themselves with delivering some popular Schlager, film tunes and other cheesy songs which get worse when they find 5kg of cocaine hidden in the storage room and try some of it.

All seems okay as they have food, fresh air, even a toilet substitution to survive till rescue arrives when suddenly the old cooling system, which asssumed defect, starts to work. And then it gets cold, very cold - and a young Turkish lady is near to rescue them...

Cast :
Sven - Andreas Euler
Oliver - Michael Bernhard
DJ Sandro - Manuel Ettelt
Adrian - Manuel Jadue
Gönül - Ismeria Urban

With a book by Christian Kühn and directed by Dominik Paetzholdt the 5 piece cast delivers two hours full of entertainment, situation comedy and funny dialogues focusing on men/machos vs women issues. Yes, a lot of the (corny) jokes, groaners and the slapstick heard or seen in similar form before, but as in "Landeier" the show has its heart in the right place.

Even moments which could fall totally flat easily can divert and make you smile, laugh or even cause occasional hysterics.

The karaoke moments (music arrangements: Andreas Goldmann) are well weaved into the show. Introduced to keep them busy and active, especially when it later gets cold, the songs, as cheesy sometimes especially when covering German Schlager music, are usually matching the situation.

As typical for a karaoke show the lyrics are displayed on two screens at each side of the stage but it feels not right to sing along so the singing is left to the actors on stage which they do fabulously blaring well choreographed (by Kerstin Bruhn and Petra Stockinger) the choreo even being part of the story - and the guys so convinced in the moment that they should form a band - called 'Machos Auf Eis'.

The set of the storage room in its functional sparseness by Alexander Martynow, only equipped with a shelf  (cleverly used during show for some "bed" acrobatics), tinned foods partly misused for some human needs and other bits and pieces you'd expect to find in such a room and costumes, largely ordinary wear but the rather bright accessories for the DJ part by Melissa Ahrens and Karin Otten are as the storyline - simplistic but as effective as possible and needed.

But what really makes this show work is the brilliant cast.
As said a lot is heard and seen before but this cast performs with so much FUN that even the biggest clichés come across hilariously.

It is especially Michael Bernhard who can impress as the a**ehole who regularly betrays his wife he compares to the Eiffel tower - nice to look at but he does not need to climb up there all the time and compares love and sex to steak and pineapple - some like their steak Hawaiin style, he prefers his steak purely at home and a pina colada somewhere else. You could easily 'hate' such a guy but Michael is so hysterically "prick-ly" and later high when testing the drugs that you can even sympathise with him up to a certain degree his character being aware that he may be an "a**ehole, but at least an honest a**ehole" as saying about himself.

The audience obviously largely emphasises with Sandro aka Manuel Ettelt.
The character has some parallels with the character Jan he played in "Landeier" and it was only his third show as Sandro he occasionally seemed not to fully have left that character behind (not that I minded when he had to say exactly the same line delivering it in the same way) but am sure with a few more shows down the road he will fully grow into the role as in others. 

He was nevertheless lovely to watch, so cutely dopely and physically exerted regularly falling over or being hit in some way (poor Manuel who once again has to take off partly his clothes displaying bruised legs because of the show) but still full of confidence not realising that he is not the smartest when e.g. trying and massively struggling to open a tin of sausages which has one of these easy full top pull tabs answering what makes a man with "Power, strength and intellectual superiority". Or when playing charade guessing movies and him getting stuck to the shelf with his tongue as he  (not so) cleverly picked the movie "Dumb & Dumber". Manuel's Sandro was so believable, full of sweetness and bouncing energy that I cannot wait to see how his character will develop as the show will transfer to Bielefeld in February with him continuing to play the part.

I was so pleased to finally see Andreas Euler on stage again as hadn't seen him for years. He delivers a convincing portrayal of the elderly Sven.
Coming across as a friendly guy at the beginning the audience learns throughout the show up to the end that he is not as good as you first thought but somehow Andreas' Sven comes across so human with human problems that you  somehow can relate to him. Well, relate is maybe not the exactly right word but you can understand his motifs (up to a certain degree) and makes you wonder what you would do in such a situation.

Of the four guys Manuel Jadue has the unfortunate part of miserable husband Adrian  who thinks that his newly wed wife betrays him. Considering what his character goes through someone would care about him wanting him to find out what the truth is. Okay is character is also slightly annoying being a constant do gooder but somehow the misery often feels rather forced and stiff and not natural. 

Completing the ensemble is Ismeria Urban as the Turkish slightly shrill part time taxi driver/science student who causes more havoc among the guys and more room for men vs women jokes and clichés especially when arguing with Oliver. 

Ismeria does a lovely job, normally such characters can get on my nerves but she does not as she finds the balance between shrillness, cuteness and confidence.

Overall a most entertaining show that finishes with a little brilliant musical encore, all dressed nicely as really having formed a band that, entertaining so, that, am pretty sure, nearly "every man (in the audience) wants to be a macho man" right now too and the women their groupies.

The show is on at the >>Komödie Kassel until end of January before moving to the >>Komödie Bielefeld where it opens on 5th February.

All pictures are taken from the Komödie Kassel website - "unfortunately" with David Wehle as Sandro. Update 19th January - some new pictures on Komödie Bielefeld link above.