- Urheberin: Mewes, Dorothea; Quelle: Kölner Frauengeschichtsverein e.V.
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
The Piccolo Theater
The Origins
“No feminist revolution was taking place in the theater… Feminism was taking place elsewhere.”1 A female dramaturg passed this verdict at the turn of the twenty-first century. In Cologne, however, the Mewes ‘family’ had long since forged a place for feminist drama. In 1985, Ingund Mewes and her daughter Dorothea took over from a friend a small theater located in the rear courtyard of number 28 on the busy Zülpicher Street. Their goal was to found a permanent women’s theater—the first ever in North Rhein-Westphalia or even the entire Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).
In doing so, the women made manifest their conviction that there was already more than enough ‘men’s theater’: Faust, Hamlet, and other heroic epics were staged around 300,000 times each year.2 They intended to counter this trend both by staging women’s viewpoints and by managing the theater themselves. “The energy we invest in other theaters and in the men who so matter-of-factly manage and direct them is for once going to be invested in us.”3 The opening of this women’s theater took place on February 22, 1986. “On the street there is nothing to see but a small sign bearing the words ‘Piccolo Theater, Mewes & Töchter’ (Mewes & Daughters). This signature is a retort to the patriarchal tradition of proclaiming Meyer and Sons or Müller Brothers and the like.”4 Adding ‘Daughters’ to the name signaled the political intent to put women in the spotlight.
The leap into an unknown future, above all as freelance managers of a theater of their own and, simultaneously, as actors, triggered major anxieties—and not without good reason, considering the state of other privately run theaters at the time.5
The Founders and the Ensemble
A small and, hence, impoverished theater could only afford itself a modest ensemble. Often there was no one on stage but the Mewes mother and daughters.6 Only occasionally did other actresses join the female trio.
Ingund Mewes had completed a classical education in the theater arts and often directed the shows. Her daughter Dorothea, nicknamed Dodo, initially pursued other career plans and studied sociology because she wanted to play an active role in society. It was via youth theater that she became familiar with the stage, before eventually taking on the business side of things at the ‘Piccolo Theater’ among other tasks, including publicity.7 Christine Wolff-Mewes followed professionally in her mother’s footsteps: she had engagements in various other theaters and was an announcer for the WDR television company. It was only in later years that she trod the boards of the ‘Piccolo Theater’ or staged something there.8 As is usual in small theater companies, all three women undertook a range of duties: author, director, set designer, actor—even sound or lighting technician.9
The Concept and the Venue
The theater could accommodate an audience of sixty at most, and its stage was small.10 The intimacy possible in such a space as well as the limited number of actors were part and parcel of the creative concept and a rebuttal of the larger theaters’ approach. Ingund Mewes looked for “other forms of directing, not this ‘Me up here, and you down there’ sort of thing—for we intended to work things out in collaboration. … Theater must abandon … hierarchical forms and structures; it must once again culminate in cooperation and not in this ‘I will tell you what you have to do.’”.11 When preparing new productions, the ensemble would spend a few weeks in the Netherlands.12 rehearsing and dramaturgically refining the text. “There, we tried out new forms of collaboration, of getting to know one another—of acting together, of going to the beach together, of downing a beer together, of working together.”13
The ensemble’s close connection to its audience was likewise a part of the political concept. There was an old sofa in the lobby as well as a small tree-planted courtyard where people could stretch their legs in the interval, discuss the play, or smoke. “Lovingly decorated with old items of furniture, the venue was something between a living room and a theater.”14 Not least owing to this style, the Piccolo stood in contrast to the new theaters with their industrial design. Discussion with the audience was always actively sought after every show—after the last curtain call.15 The lobby was a place to mingle with the public, and no one was obliged to buy a drink. It was popular to “… sit there after the shows, chatting, laughing, crying, drinking, discussing, and emboldening each other.”16 The visitors’ books bear witness to people’s engagement with the content of the plays. The audiences were predominantly female.
Direction and Choice of Plays
The guests knew that “when they [went] to the Piccolo Theater, they [would] at the very least not see anything misogynist, not even if a visiting company [was] playing.”17 In addition to its feminist orientation, the theater troupe took a decidedly anti-fascist and pacifist stance, tackling the Nazi era critically. Accordingly, many people considered it to be “the only genuinely political theater in Cologne.”.18 Ingund Mewes was afraid that young people might drift off to the right.19 She therefore welcomed them to the theater and her team frequently staged plays whose main characters were young. In one press release, it was stated: “Our plans: to present writers who have been unjustly neglected, above all the women among them, because they are overlooked even more than their colleagues. … Since the Piccolo Theater was founded by women…, it stands to reason that we should tackle the topic of women and women’s particularly difficult situation—and do so as seriously as necessary and as humorously as possible.”20
The main motivation for Ingund’s Mewes activism was what she believed to be Germany’s still unexamined Nazi past. “I see the present rise of right-wing parties as a catastrophe—and it makes me afraid. The same is happening in other countries but I feel that given our past history we of all people may on no account move once again in that direction21 Women’s courageous civic engagement and resistance to the Nazi regime (1939–1945) were a prominent thread in the ‘Piccolo Theater’s’ early readings and dramas. The biographies selected for treatment were those of women shaped by struggle and unusual paths in life.
The opening performance—a dramatized reading from letters of the Scholl siblings executed for their resistance to the Nazi regime—was prepared in cooperation with their older sister Inge Aicher-Scholl, who “gave Ingund und Dorothea Mewes access to exclusive material that remains unpublished to this day.”22 There followed dramatizations of the Italian authors Franca Rame and Dario Fo, plays such as Nur Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Only Children, Kitchen, Church) and in 1988, the anarchic Bezahlt wird nicht! (Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!), a typical tale of emancipation at the time..23 The series continued in 1992 with a play provocatively titled Mamma hat den besten Shit (Mother’s Marijuana Is the Best). But the repertoire also included Henrik Ibsen’s well-known nineteenth-century emancipatory drama Nora, which was performed 150 times. The greatest guarantees of success, however, were the plays written by the trio themselves. In the early evening of April 30, 1989—the start of Walpurgis night—Ingund and Dorothea Mewes stood outside the Cologne Cathedral—a symbolic site of the secular high court—and recited the names of all the women (and the handful of men) who had been burned in Cologne as witches.24 The women presented scenes from the play then in production about these persecuted women, captivating their audience. However, one newspaper reported that the Archbishop of Cologne, Joseph Höffner, had only critical things to say: “For once and for all the women should stop driving their muck cart through the scandals in the history of the Church.”25 Die Töchter der ‚Hexen‘ (The Daughters of the ‘Witches’), the first play jointly written by the mother and daughter team, which drew upon historical source material, premiered in September 1987; it was to become the best known of their own pageant-like plays.26
This play about the daughters of three Cologne women persecuted as sorcerers was booked by groups as well as by local government commissaries for women’s rights and played far and wide throughout Germany. In 1991, it won the Cologne Theater Award, guaranteeing the survival of the ‘Piccolo Theater’ for quite some time thereafter27 A prominent role was also played by the monologue Nein! (No!), which was written as well as acted by Dorothea Mewes..28 Produced in 1995, it dealt with incest in childhood and showed with great sensitivity how this affected the protagonist’s future. To stage a play on this theme was to break a taboo. In the months before and after German reunification, a period marked by an upswing in racist and antisemitic incidents, the Piccolo team presented Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank), each performance provoking extensive discussion with the audience.
Success and Decline
The artists succeeded in turning the ‘Piccolo Theater’ into a popular venue on Cologne’s cultural scene. At the party celebrating the theater’s eighth anniversary in 1994, the team was able to report that they had already presented almost 1,000 performances.29 But the average bookings, circa 85 percent of the theater’s limited capacity, did not cover costs. In 1993, its already insufficient state funding was cut completely—a decision that Ingund attributed to the fact that the theater was a women’s project.30 “Let me tell you the truth plainly: if we were practically minded and rational, we would have closed the theater on December 31, 1993. But we are neither practically minded nor rational. We are women: we are impractical, irrational, crazy, emotional, daring, and, above all, we love the Piccolo Theater! … Germany is in flames, times are getting harder and more chilling by the day, and for all these reasons and more we consider it vital to carry on, to not give up, to fight to defend the Piccolo’s existence!”31 A nonprofit friends’ association was founded to improve the dire financial situation. Other creative solutions were also needed; thus, the performances on Christmas Eve and on New Year’s Eve were followed by fundraising parties. Additionally, special events took place during the summer holidays, when the motto was: ‘Raise the curtain for the SUMMER SEASON in the PICCOLO THEATER’. Another creative departure in the early 1990s was the talk show format featuring ‘strong women’ from Cologne or thereabouts.
But by 2003 the theater was once again on the brink of financial ruin, and after 1,436 performances for circa 76,950 guests, it temporarily closed. In 2004, Ingund Mewes celebrated 50th stage anniversary: she had poured all her energy and passion into the ‘Piccolo Theater’ project. “The theater was her life, her very existence, and she would at times tangle with people to defend it.”32 Following her death in 2005, her daughters staged further productions at the ‘Piccolo Theater’ until the curtains fell for the final time in 2018.33
Footnotes
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1
Bauer, Claudia et al.: FrauenTheaterKarriere. Feministischer Aufbruch im Theater?, in: Engelhardt, Barbara et al. (Ed.): TheaterFrauenTheater, Berlin 2001, 58.
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2
Kölner Frauengeschichtsverein: Interview with Ingund Mewes on May 18, 1999, KFGV_Int_Mewes_1, hereafter Interview 1.
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3
Linnhoff, Ursula / Stolzenburg, Marit: Rinderschmorbraten! Kann sie das überhaupt? Die Mutter – Ingund Mewes, Schauspielerin und Rundfunksprecherin, Mitbesitzerin und -gründerin des Kölner Piccolotheaters, in: idem (Ed.): Einig Frauenland? Mütter und Töchter in West und Ost, Berlin 1995, 194.
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4
Häuser‚ Raphaela: Unser größter Feind ist die Kirche. Interview with Ingund Mewes about her life and the political struggle against Clause 218, in: Philtrat, April/ May 2003, no. 52, https://www.philtrat.de/articles/435/index.html, accessed April 2, 2018.
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5
Linnhoff, Ursula / Stolzenburg, Marit: Wir Frauen müssen unsere Wurzeln finden. Die Tochter – Dodo Mewes, Schauspielerin, Mitbesitzerin und -gründerin des Kölner Piccolotheaters, in: Einig Frauenland?, 211.
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6
Häuser: ‚Unser größter Feind…‘.
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7
Cf. Interview 1, ca. 23:10’.
- 8 Interview 1, ca. 29:10.
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9
Bauer: FrauenTheaterKarriere. Feministischer Aufbruch im Theater?, 55; cf. Häuser: Unser größter Feind ist die Kirche.
- 10 Häuser: ‚Unser größter Feind …‘.
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11
Linnhoff / Stolzenburg: Rinderschmorbraten!, 194 f.
- 12 Interview 1, ca. 29:00‘.
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13
Linnhoff / Stolzenburg: Rinderschmorbraten!, 194 f.
- 14 Häuser, ebenda; vgl. Interview 1, ca. 32:10‘.
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15
Linnhoff / Stolzenburg: Rinderschmorbraten!, 194.
- 16 Archiv Kölner FGV, Bestand KFGV_0096, Mewes, Dodo, [Einführung] in: Spielplan Okt/Nov/Dez 1993.
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17
Linnhoff / Stolzenburg: Rinderschmorbraten!, 194.
- 18 Häuser: ‚Unser größter Feind …‘.
- 19 Linnhoff / Stolzenburg: Rinderschmorbraten!, S. 198.
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20
Verein zur Förderung von Kunst und Literatur (Ed.): Stadtbuch 89, Köln 1988, 384.
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21
Linnhoff / Stolzenburg: Rinderschmorbraten!, 198.
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22
Häuser: ‚Unser größter Feind …‘.; cf. Interview 1, ca. 28:00‘.
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23
Premiered on July 19, 1988. There were 100 performances, 13 of them at other venues. Information about Piccolo Theater productions can be found on the Piccolo homepage: http://www.piccolo-theater.de/piccolo.html, accessed April 4, 2024.
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24
Author’s own recollection.
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25
Cf. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, vom 7.4.1987.
- 26 Vgl. Franken, Irene / Hoerner, Ina: Hexen. Die Verfolgung in Köln, Köln 1987.
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27
Kölner Theaterpreis laut Kreitz, Susanne: Ingund Mewes ist tot, in: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger vom 21.2.2005.
- 28 Premiere: 27.1.1995, 66 Vorstellungen, davon 8 Gastspiele.
- 29 Archiv KFGV Bestand KFGV_0096, Spielplan Jan/Feb/Mär/April 1994.
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30
Cf. Interview 1, ca. 35:39‘.
- 31 Archiv Bestand KFGV_0096, Programmheft Spielplan Oktober/November/Dezember 1993.
- 32 Kreitz, Susanne: Ingund Mewes ist tot.
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33
See the Piccolo homepage for the current state of affairs: http://www.piccolo-theater.de/termine.html, accessed April 4, 2024.
