Sven Ratzke as “Marlene” within the Renaissance Theater: Diva from Sundown Boulevard

On an Easter Monday in 2004 there was a particular anniversary to have a good time within the Renaissance Theater: Judy Winter appeared on stage as “Marlene” for the five hundredth time. When you consider the reviews from again then, there was a standing ovation and a rain of flowers. Winter had already performed the function of the growing older diva in 62 cities in seven international locations, and the manufacturing had traveled so far as Japan. Winter performed the half on Knesebeckstrasse for eight years, and even after that she was repeatedly persuaded to do particular person sequence of performances. Judy and Marlene – that was at all times synonymous in Berlin.

So it undoubtedly takes braveness to tackle the identical place as the brand new “Marlene”. Sven Ratzke has no scarcity of that. And thankfully not missing in expertise both. The German-Dutch actor, singer, musical star and quick-change artist, who’s now taking part in the cool blonde with excessive cheekbones in Guntbert Warns’ course, has already emphasised many instances prematurely that he was not merely taken with a revival of the winter hit. However about his personal interpretation of the Marlene Dietrich delusion. And that works.

Invented, not born

The least outstanding factor is {that a} man now embodies the girl in a trouser swimsuit and prime hat, who in the end didn’t consider in pigeonholing gender, however quite the opposite was a pioneer for libertinage in Berlin within the Nineteen Twenties. Ratzke – who has been on stage on the Renaissance Theater intermittently for ten years within the profitable play “Hedwig and the Offended Inch” – is just not on the lookout for travesty.

He performs a lady who struggles with the picture she has created herself – condemned to turn out to be a perpetual diva, a lascivious vamp. An artist who can’t discover a technique to age gracefully and publicly, however as a substitute barricades herself in her Paris house for years and shuts out the world.

“I wasn’t born, I used to be invented,” says the written opening monologue by Dutch creator Connie Palmen. And that may undoubtedly be understood programmatically. The primary a part of the underlying, newly tailored piece by Pam Gems takes place backstage, between the mattress and the relentless mirrors with which Ezio Toffolutti has surrounded the stage.

Right here, the aged Dietrich, a prisoner of being Marlene – cared for by her assistant, the younger actress Viv (Johanna Asch) – prepares for an upcoming tour. Bought out? “Virtually,” comes the reply. Not what a fame junkie desires to listen to. The pianist Jetse de Jong mixes corresponding ominous tones into the longing tune “If I may want for one thing”.

It’s, particularly earlier than the break, a really melancholy “Marlene”, a chunk from the Sundown Boulevard of the profession, interspersed with reminiscences of the nice successes with director Sternberg, but additionally of diatribes from Germans with a Nazi fog of their heads that may hardly be dispelled , who by no means needed to forgive Dietrich for leaving for the USA. The lover of hate, who describes herself as homeless and residing in cloakrooms, defies self-assertion: “I’m an icon, I make no errors.”

After the break she might be seen in live performance – and this half can also be utterly profitable. As a result of Ratzke and pianist De Jong largely strip the entire eagerly awaited chansons and evergreens of the pathos and patina of what they’ve heard too typically. “La vie en rose”, “Inform me the place the flowers are”, “Lilli Marleen”, after all “I’m ready for love from head to toe” – all of those songs might be heard anew as moments of the best doable honesty by which Dietrich Finds freedom from her personal fictional character. On the finish there’s a standing ovation. Berlin has a brand new “Marlene”.