What a drama!

It’s almost dark. The evening sky is just peeking through the dense treetops here and there. The laid-out candles provide a bit of light, just so much that you can see the path in front of you. The fairy tale forest is even a mystical place during the day. According to legend, it is supposed to have been created by the massive collapse of the rock face situated roughly 300 metres higher in the 13th century. Grottos and little caves were formed due to the special nature of the stone and everything is covered in moss. Now, as night falls, an almost spooky mood sets in. What a fantastic open-air stage! The Ruhpoldinger Heimatbühne actors and actresses have taken position at six different spots in the forest. Led by fairy tale anni, the young audience passes each of them working their way through the play. It is being rewritten by Sonja Hartl every year. The lucky grotto, a rock with a narrow crevice, is always incorporated into the play. Anyone how touches the stone when slipping through it can make a wish.

There are also a lot of children involved in the play besides the actors. They are dwarves or royal children, depending on the plot. One dress rehearsal is enough to get it right. “There is lots of improvisation, no two performances are the same, the text is free but the meaning has to be right,” says Sonja’s husband Manfred. He has been in the local theatre group for more than 40 years. His fellow actress Christina is just helping him into his costume and giving him a long, white beard and hat. He looks a little bit like a hobgoblin. He is particularly impressive in his role as Rübezahl, a mountain spirit. When he warns the children at the end to treat the forest and nature with care and hands out golden chocolate coins for this.

The Ruhpoldinger Heimatbühne’s myths, fairy tales and legends are for children aged four and above and have long been a permanent fixture on the calendar. There are also one or two theatre plays. Modern light comedies like “My wife is now the boss”, “a really hot number” or “ladies night”, which the tickets are regularly sold out for, are very much what the Chairman Simon Geierstanger and his team enjoy. The latter comedy is about three friends who don’t have a job or prospects but they do have a plan: male striptease. Michael Lindhuber is part of the ensemble for the play and is also on the Ruhpoldinger Heimatbühne board. There are lots of rehearsals before the performances that the director Hermann Hipf leads with great sensitivity. “When he suggests plays to us, he usually already has the cast in mind,” says Lindhuber, who has also been part of two tour appearances for the local theatre group in Dortmund and Bonn. “The audience there was brilliant, a fantastic atmosphere,” he says.

Usually the local theatre group performs in Ruhpolding’s Catholic parish hall but also in the wintry spa gardens, as support for the Christmas pageant at the lumberjack museum or in fact in the fair tale forest. Michael Lindhuber puts his dark cloak over his costume and disappears into the shadow of the trees to take up his position. The audience of children are just about to get to him.