If the plot of Nebenan ( Next Door ) sounds familiar to you , it is because it is based on a film by the same name , whose script was written by Daniel Kehlmann and Daniel Brühl ( who in the film also plays the role of Oliver ), and which was released in 2021 . Daniel Kehlmann is an internationally acclaimed German-Austrian novelist and playwright whose most famous books include Me and Kaminski , Measuring the World , and Fame . His 2017 novel
Tyll is currently being adapted into a Netflix series .
Labelled a Theaterkrimi , director Ulrich Waller sets the scene in a neighborhood bar in a part of Berlin that before reunification was in the former GDR . Now the neighborhood has been gentrified , and only the bar seems to remind people of the past . Oliver ( Oliver Mommsen ) is a well-known TV actor who has moved into the renovated loft he bought at the end of the 1990s in the same building that houses the pub . He is on his way to the airport for an important casting call in London and just stops for a coffee and some phone calls . In the pub , he meets Bruno ( Stephan Grossmann ), who has grown up in the house and is now living in the rear building . Oliver has never noticed Bruno before . Bruno , on the other hand , seems to know just about everything about Oliver . Here the “ Krimi ” develops , as it turns into a psychological cat-and-mouse game . At first Bruno asks for an autograph , then starts telling Oliver his opinion of the films he has made and does not hold back his criticism for how the people of the former GDR ( Ossis ) are misrepresented by the West Germans ( Wessis ). Oliver is clearly irritated by Bruno ’ s behavior and even more by the knowledge Bruno has about private details of Oliver ’ s life . Very cleverly , the theater scene with the bar setting turns whenever a new aspect is introduced , so that the audience gets another view of the protagonists . As Oliver is more and more baffled , we learn that Bruno works for a credit card company and thus knows a whole lot more about Oliver and his family than Oliver could ever have imagined . Whenever Oliver has heard enough and just wants to get a taxi to escape this neighbor of his , Bruno comes up with another piece of information about Oliver ’ s life , such as the fact of Oliver ’ s wife Clara ’ s infidelity ( Anne Weber , alternating with Isabelle Giebeler and Johanna C . Gehlen in other performances ).
Eventually it dawns on Oliver that this encounter was not accidental , but that Bruno has waited for this opportunity to hold a mirror up to Oliver ’ s seemingly happy and successful life . This is Bruno ’ s revenge for being on the other side , the eternal Ossi loser who had to move to the back of the building to make space for people like Oliver .
Both Grossmann and Mommsen are superbly cast as the opponents in this play about a complicated part of German history . The rest of the cast , especially the bartender ( Nadja Petri ) and Micha the “ regular ” ( Torsten Hammann ), are wonderful additions to the setting of this East-West reckoning . A thoroughly entertaining play full of clever dialogue and food for thought .
NEBENAN
A NEW PLAY BY DANIEL KEHLMANN AT THE ST . PAULI THEATER
Directed by Ulrich Waller
BY ULRIKE LEMKE
50 HAMBURG HAPPENINGS