To mark the Baden-Württemberg Cabaret Prize, here is a magnificent review from Müllheim in the Breisgau. On 5 March, René Sydow was a guest at the Söhnlin-Keller, and the Badische Zeitung was kind enough to write us a hymn of praise that we simply have to share.
"Let the stage be a circus"
The cabaret artist René Sydow performs his show "Gedanken! Los!" at the Söhnlin-Keller in Müllheim.
MÜLLHEIM. Last Thursday at the Söhnlin-Keller, René Sydow took to the stage — a cabaret artist whose sharpest weapon is language. His show "Gedanken! Los!" is demanding, requires the audience's constant concentration and shows the 34-year-old in a wide range of roles.
He has long since ceased to be an unknown on the scene: René Sydow's show has won numerous awards, in February he appeared on the satirical programme "Die Anstalt", and now he is also receiving the Baden-Württemberg Cabaret Prize. What is more — as Elmar Breuer noted while introducing the artist — he is the first native of Baden to perform in the quaint vaulted cellar since the Querdenker series began more than ten years ago.
Sydow, in a plain blazer and glasses, begins harmlessly enough, turning to the operating principles of the global economy, which is kept running by the consumer. "We don't just need a phone app that shows us the nearest phone box; we even need waterproof phones so we can take photos of sagging dad-bellies at the swimming pool."
Such things worry Sydow deeply, and because they do, he is in therapy, as he tells us himself. He slips into the role of his therapist, who asks whether he has any children. The answer: "I don't know, my wife handles all that." As a hobby he lists collecting "beautiful German words". He had a few magnificent puns up his sleeve: Annette Schavan's honorary doctorate had been a "special source of lies" for her, IT girls make their careers in bed, and Berlin airport ought not to be built any further in Schönefeld but rather "in insolvency".
Language clearly has him in its grip. He twists words like a Rubik's cube — though the sides won't line up any time soon, he explains. Language, he says, is what distinguishes ordinary people from Til Schweiger. He would also love it if the prefixes in the names Schweiger and Schweighöfer were read by the two actors as an invitation. The cabaret artist from Lake Constance is rhetorically accomplished, constantly varying his manner of speaking; the dynamism of his language sweeps you along. You can tell he has experience in poetry slam. On some subjects Sydow turns serious: he sharply criticises Germany's role as a major arms exporter and does the maths: "For the price of two tanks you can also get four kindergartens and a hospice in Germany." And in the spirit of "joking aside", he then reveals what he thinks of television in general and the crime series Tatort in particular: "Two overpaid dimwits eat currywurst and solve cases that even the TKKG kids would have turned down for lack of interest." In between, he stages a dream in which he meets Rudi Völler, who gives him hair-care tips. After that he heads to the job centre, where he self-deprecatingly justifies his work as a cabaret artist and is nevertheless sent off in the end to a self-optimisation seminar. Sydow's show is not something you watch with half an eye. To follow his ingenious wordplay, part-literary allusions and abstract trains of thought, the audience has to stay on the ball. Sydow pulls it off through his lively manner and, above all, his dynamic responses to outside influences and to the audience: "And in the audience there are people who all eat cheese...", he observes, drawing attention to a unique feature of the Söhnlin-Keller: here, top-class cabaret always comes with a large selection of delicious cheeses. "Let the stage be a circus", Sydow demands — and that evening he puts his words into action with consistency and virtuosity.
via Badische Zeitung