Irma La Douce

On Sunday I woke up from a good 12 hours of sleep (on top of the six from the day before) completely refreshed and ready to try being social again. Trying to speak with Robert’s friends the night before left me feeling awkward at moments. But let’s face it, it’s funny to hear people mess up when trying to speak a new language. I seem to mix up words that sound really alike to me, even if they mean completely different things. For example, Robert said he was bringing my bags to the basement (der Keller); I thought he said Kellner, which means waiter, like in a restaurant. After a bit of explaining it made sense. If you ask me to tell you what a ‘court of law’ is in German I will go through ten different words before getting there: Dichter (poet) to Gesicht (face) to Geschichte (history/ story) to Gericht (dish) to Gesezt (law) back to Gericht (which incidentally also means court).

Katrin, Robert’s mother, prepared us all a wonderful, very German breakfast. I missed these so much while back in the States. On the table there were a few different homemade marmalades, fresh bread, butter with herbs and without, about three different salamis and hams (I can’t tell the difference), the strawberries with Schnapps from the fest the day before (a strong kick for the morning), and of course strong coffee (the second kick of the morning). My Italian friends from the Heidelberg Ferienkurs from last summer say that German coffee barely deserves to call itself coffee; it pales in comparison to ‘real Italian espresso’. After a year of massively tall cups of light coffee from the C-shop (Chicago) unlike those Italians I welcomed the small cup of dark coffee. I must confess that I have drunken on average about two cups a day since I got here. At first I was “combating jet-lag” but I’m starting to get used to an afternoon coffee after my language courses.

But now onto Irma…Robert asked me if I wanted to accompany him at his ‘Theaterprobe”, or play-practice, and I gladly accepted. His play is actually opening tonight; he’s had a hectic week of practices and dress rehearsals. We left right after breakfast and drove to a town fifteen minutes away. The place they’re doing the play is in a large barn-converted gym sort of building with a stage and kitchen on one end. The play is called ‘Irma la Douce’, a French comedy about an awkward, very uptight policeman (Nestor Patou) who falls in love with a prostitute (Irma La Douce). He loses his job while woo-ing her. He then impersonates a rich “Englishman” to impress her and keep her love, but is accused of murdering this same Englishman that he himself is impersonating. Instead of telling Irma the truth he goes to jail and in his absence Irma’s love remains true. Very sweet, and a challenge for me since of course the play is in German. Robert plays the part of the awkward policeman, of course. The company is called StageArt, a sort of community theater that people of all ages can take part in. The director, Uli, is incredibly dynamic. When I had no idea where to sit so that I would be out of the way of the actors she directed me to a bench in the center of the barn next to her and her two kids (who occasionally kicked a soccer ball in and around the actors). I began reading the script and found that the play was much easier to understand with the text in front of me.

So I became a sort of line-keeper, pointing out where we were when Uli needed to stop the actors for some reason or another. She spoke to me in English a bit to explain the plot. I wanted to thank her for making me feel at home but could not get the words out! A few of the actors also spoke to me in English and told me about their experiences in the US as we did some stage-set up. Uli seemed to be embarrassed when some of the actors did not come to the practice and thus she jumped up with my script to fill in for their lines. The acting was great, and even when I couldn’t understand, some of the adult men in the play had incredibly expressive faces that helped me with the context. Little by little, the stage was set up as the rehearsal continued, so that it came together langsam aber sicher, slowly but surely. I could not stop smiling throughout – Robert’s character is unbelievably funny. At one point he will jump out from behind a wall wearing boxers; a friend of his sewed on “Mum” in a heart in bright red velvet for the occasion. Robert is nervous even after a full week of rehearsals, particularly for the blocking (not a word they use, but that’s what it is). Many people are coming to the show. His friends from Karlsruhe, some people from the Russian department in Heidelberg, his mother, brother, roommates Anna and Nina and of course I will all be there to cheer him on at one or two or all three performances this coming weekend.