Das Theater mit dem Waldhaus

One production which sadly cannot be transplanted to Berlin: the Hotel Waldhaus, opened one hundred years ago, stands proud and dream-like high above Lake Sils in Oberengadin; and the ghostly performance which director Marthaler and his singing and acting followers have created to celebrate its anniversary is both joyful and full of longing. The company begin sitting in front of the panoramic window of the tea room singing songs like “Ich sag so gerne du zu dir, mein Herz schlägt nur für dich” or “Là-haut, sur la montagne”. Then there is a procession into the Hotel’s sports hall where either extremely funny or extremely serious texts by for example Walter Serner or Robert Walser are recited. It may be that Marthaler’s theatre is more deeply rooted in neglected station cafes than in the grand glamour of this famous artist’s hotel, but it has rarely had such elegance and inner beauty as in this combination of teatime and sports hall slapstick. Marthaler conjures up a dance of death in which famous guests of the hotel (which include Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein and Richard Strauss) appear to rise from the dead, he tells of homesickness and the pains of separation, of the melancholy of travelling and the abyss which lurks inside every hotel guest and every hotel employee. At the same time this production teaches us that theatre can turn any place in the world into a stage – only sadly, and this is something the jury greatly regrets, this is a stage which cannot be recreated anywhere else.