Quiet and "butterfly-music-tastic"

Editor Adrian Schräder

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A visit to Rigo and Rosa: courage, music and a mouse meet in a leopard's enclosure - and almost nothing becomes poetry for a lifetime.

In the past, the majority of Sundays were spent in bed, passing the time until the curry delivery from Lily's with casual coitus, linear television and a hangover that felt like the just punishment for everything - and yet was never enough to learn any lessons.

Today, Sundays start with a syrup and fidgety anticipation on your lap. Interestingly, at a venue that we know only too well from the days of the early Hangover-Hallos: the Kanzlei Turnhalle on Helvetiaplatz.

On stage: a leopard, a mouse, a rock and a zookeeper - that's all it takes to make theatre and tackle the big issues. "Rigo and Rosa - Friends for Life" (director: Coco Thalmann, based on a book by Lorenz Pauli) dares to pare things down. No enchanted forest, no city, no extras, no storm of effects. Instead, there is time, silence and the realisation that what is decisive does not change in the room, but between the characters.

Rigo (played by Juri Elmer) is tall, calm, composed - someone who speaks with his eyes and endures pauses. Rosa (played by Mirjam Baur) is his opposite: small, curious, impatient, fond of words, full of ideas, questions and nonsense. The animal keeper (Luigi Prezioso) is the link: he feeds, observes, tells, explains.

The play thrives on a special friendship and the power of language. Rosa in particular has a sense for the little things that turn even a small cage into an adventure playground and invents words that sound as if someone is juggling with a fruit salad: "schmettermuusitastisch", "pflotschtrocken", or "Freundschaftspflanzenpflege". Gustavo, who is busy at school and loves the sound of the words, naturally likes it.

The fact that it's not "chlöpft und tätscht" here, but mostly quiet, doesn't bother him in the slightest. On the contrary: he stretches further and further away from his father's lap, not wanting to miss anything - even though there isn't that much going on. In this cage and in this play, he is allowed to be bored, to sigh, to ponder and to sleep. It has its own pace, its own charm, its own messages.

The little plant of friendship is watered again and again. It is sung about and watered almost too often. The perspective is exciting: the little mouse seems weak, but she has all the freedom she needs and can slip in and out of anywhere; Rigo, on the other hand, seems strong, but can't get out of his cage. But his little grey friend also takes the weight off this realisation in an instant.

At one point, it becomes very quiet. The animal keeper says that the Arctic fox in the neighbouring cage has died. "From what?" Gustavo, who is unfortunately already far too familiar with the subject of death for an almost 7-year-old, immediately wants to know. Nobody knows. But there is intense mourning on stage - and Gustavo mourns with them. In the end, it is Rosa who takes the first step - out of the silence and back into life.

On the way out, Gustavo says that he still prefers Rigo to the cheeky mouse. "Because she farted so loudly that it sounded like thunder." For this honest and direct assessment, the critic was given a plate of spaghetti afterwards.

All event dates at andaverlag.ch