A lot of fuss about a small twirl

Editor Adrian Schräder

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Only one story, but a good one: young critic Gustavo and his dad spend Sunday morning with Mrs Holle and her cheerful helper.

Long before visiting the theatre, the young critic is faced with a very legitimate, central question that could not be more topical: Real or fake? Appearance or reality? Humbug or Humboldt? Or in his words, after marvelling at the poster of the Zurich Fairytale Theatre several times: "Are there wüki grannies who make snow with pillows?" So: does Mrs Holle really exist?

"Probably not," is the answer, in which his father packs as much regret as you can into two words. But it seems to reassure six-year-old Gustavo, because he likes to talk. And how precipitation occurs and that there is such a thing as a water cycle and only a certain amount of water is the subject of one of his favourite speeches. He even gesticulates like a university professor. The roof of the Leutschenbach would be far too profane a stage for this. And that's just it: If someone was sitting there in heaven and could cancel out this cycle with a cushion, then his lecture would have to be completely redesigned. So: relief. Just a story.

But an exciting one, as he realises from the very first moment in the bustling theatre on Hechtplatz, which is filled with people of the same and similar ages: a cheerful goblin called Zwirbeli from Gigeliberg immediately hops across the stage and conjures things up. And the grandma with the pillow is actually a grandma and shakes her pillow with great seriousness. Because otherwise there's just no snow here.

But she also cares about the well-being of the people down on earth. For those who are disadvantaged, like Vreneli, who simply can't please her evil mother and even more evil sister Marie.

She is treated nastily and has to clean, cook, wash and shovel snow, while her sister indulges and indulges and indulges - cake, sleep and outrageousness of all kinds. "Cake isn't healthy anyway, is it?" says Gustavo to comfort the hard-working Vreneli a little. Fortunately, Mrs Holles' assistant Zwirbeli helps out the disadvantaged daughter with a few magic tricks. In the end - as you know - there's gold for one and bad luck for the other. The moral is spot on.

The production by Zürcher Märchenbühne, based on the dialect version by Jörg Schneider and directed by Philippe Roussel, has everything a fairy tale needs: Drama and moral, humour and spectacle (Zwirbeli actually seems to be able to do magic! Children's necks grow long!). And characters you can hold on to, even when they're bouncing across the stage as light as a feather.

After a good 90 minutes, we spend another ice-cream-long time discussing how practical it would be to have a pillow like Mrs Holle and be able to shake snow everywhere. "I could take my skis to the Chindsgi every day!" imagines Gustavo.

But before the whole thing gets too political - how sustainable is Mrs Holle's work? Is everything kosher when making snow?

"Frau Holle" can be seen at Theater Hechtplatz until 30 March. There will be two additional performances on 29 and 30 March.

Further information and tickets at theaterhechtplatz.ch or maerchenbuehne.ch