Memories of the war, the time afterwards and “Being human”

>The memories of contemporary witnesses are invaluable.

However, it is in the nature of the matter that the number of people who witnessed an event decreases

over time. This makes it all the more important to record the memories of these people.

This is what happened in the book “Mensch sein”, which has now been published and presented

with a reading in the Theresienkapelle.

The book contains memories and reports about the prisoner of war camp in Singen.

For example, from former inmate Günther Fleckenstein, whose chapter was edited and commented on

by his daughters Catharina and Franziska.

Or how camp commander Jean le Pan de Ligny took a risk and gave the prisoners a week's leave

to go home and collect their instruments.

“They all came back to the camp, each with their instrument and a pack of sheet music,”

says the book.

The construction of the Theresienkapelle is also mentioned.

According to Dr. Carmen Scheide, chairwoman of the support association and editor of the book,

this is an example of how former enemies can be reconciled.

The chapel is a place where people are remembered who had to live with the effects of war.

“War must not be a means of politics”, Carmen Scheide was convinced.<

Excerpt 

Wochenblatt Singen

November 2024 by Tobias Lange

 

 

FAUST 1 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

>The deliberately ridiculous opening with Catharina Fleckenstein's dazzling part, as if it were a

"Wetten, dass...?" evening, which awaited the listeners in Bückeburg, had long been forgiven. (...)

Lennart Hillmann and Catharina Fleckenstein shone in a variety of roles. (...)

It would have to be the devil's own doing if there weren't more major projects of this kind in the

Bückeburg castle park followed. <

Excerpt

Schaumburger Nachrichten

August 2024 by Volkmar Heuer-Strathmann

 

 

MENSCH SEIN

Scenic reading on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Theresienkapelle Singen-.

the only still existing camp chapel in Germany, which was built by prisoners of war.

>Dr. Carmen Scheide was particularly pleased to welcome the family and descendants of the then French camp commander Capitaine Jean le Pan de Ligny, who had traveled from France for this celebration. (...)

She told in short words how the second part of the commemoration had come about.

The narrator and actress Catharina Fleckenstein visited the chapel and knew the place from the stories of her father Günther, who himself was a prisoner of war in this camp. (...) 

So Catharina Fleckenstein together with Wolfgang Gellert as narrator read from the diary

of the father Fleckenstein. They managed to strikingly revive the period through the appropriate pitch and voice dramaturgy and to captivate the audience. They began with the stories of how Günther Fleckenstein described the camp, where hunger reigned and the camp kitchen remained cold because there was nothing to eat. These terrible pictures painted in words were not to remain for long, soon they read about the transformation. The camp was transformed into a functioning community with administration, technicians, translators, but also musicians and athletes. 

All camp inmates had to help. There was "the duty to live a life worth living even in captivity," according to the credo of the new camp leader, Capitaine Jean le Pan de Ligny. 

This wonderful commemoration turned out to be a reminder, but also a meeting point to deal with this special history, so that the right action can emerge in the future.< 

Excerpt

Wochenblatt Singen

May 2023 by Uwe Johnen

 

>It was supposed to be a model camp: How being a human being succeeded in a prisoner of war camp

"When I was 15, there was war" - with these words, a memorial evening recently began in the Theresienkapelle in Singen at a time when young people elsewhere in the world have to go through similar experiences. More than 75 years ago, the chapel was inaugurated, and the event was intended to commemorate that.

The 15-year-old at the time, whom the staged reading commemorates, is named Günther Fleckenstein.

It is now over 80 years since he received the draft.

At only 18, he volunteered for the army because he had previously refused to join the Hitler Youth.

His mother was horrified, because his older brother had already been killed in Russia, Fleckenstein's daughter Catharina recalls. Together with her sister Franziska, she has edited her father's records

of his stay in Singen as a prisoner of war. Together with actor Wolfgang Gellert, Catharina Fleckenstein

now revived the memories.(...)

Before the reading, Dean Mathias Zimmermann and Pastor Andrea Fink-Fauser had introduced with impulse thoughts and an ecumenical blessing. The song "Praise the Lord", had already been sung by the prisoners' choir at the inauguration of the chapel. The song expresses what connects people and goes deeper than all trenches, said Fink-Fauser. Today, against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, it is even more important to

stand up for peace and freedom, which is why the Theresienkapelle is still a sign of departure with a view to the future, said Singen's mayor Bernd Häusler in his greeting.<

Excerpt

Südkurier Kreis Konstanz/Singen

May 2023 by Susanne Gehrmann-Röhm

 

 

IM AUSNAHMEZUSTAND by Falk Richter

>Catharina Fleckenstein plays the woman dominated by these fears just as convincingly as

Tom Pidde plays the man who convinces himself of his security and seeks refuge in a dull routine.<

Excerpt

Godot-The Hamburg Theatre Magazine

January 2016 by Christian Hanke

 

>The analogy to the current refugee situation and the attempt to seal off Europe,

is obvious. Richter's characters are consumed by their fears.

When Catharina Fleckenstein, as a blonde woman, asks her husband (Tom Pidde) the same questions

over and over again, she comes across as a Beckett figure, close to insanity and trapped in

her mental loops.<

Excerpt

Hamburger Abendblatt

Strong plays at small theatres

January 2016 by Heinrich Oehmsen

 

>There are artists, on the outskirts of the city, think of it, they make theatre for theatre's sake.

They are, I think, unpretentious, they live for art, they have this seriousness,

for which I envy them so much.

Don't they get tired?

How could fools get tired?

Thank you Tom, Ines and Catharina Fleckenstein, I am in your debt!

Thank you, for the war of words, Konstanze Ullmer!<

Posted

on Facebook

By Christian Berg (storyteller, actor and director)

 

 

 KLASSEFRAUEN · 133 JAHRE GEBALLTE FRAUENPOWER

>The ensemble spent several weeks rehearsing the show, which they wrote themselves.

It is probably unique in the category of musical theatre in Hamburg, perhaps even a gem.

Three generations of women:

Grandmother Ottilie as well as her daughter and granddaughter (together representing 133 years of life)

encounter each other in the generation and love conflict that is familiar to all viewers across the

generations, but here, through the interspersing of numerous songs, most of them world-famous,

and documented in an enchanting new way.

This small new team offers in its exciting collaborative work not only dialogue, couplets and chansons, performed with an inimitably pointed language and nonchalance,

their young directorial colleague Daniel Großkämper has also given them

ample space for movement and expression.

In connection with this troupe of gifted singers, one may once quote the great singer

Kirsten Flagstadt with her famous phrase: "Here are stars in bloom".<

Excerpt

Godot - The Hamburg Theatre Magazine

September 2013 by Hans-Peter Kurr

 

 

UNTER SCHWEBENDEN LASTEN von Bettina Katalin

 >Decently restrained with wonderful linguistic discipline, Catharina Fleckenstein enthused

as Helena.<

Excerpt

The Foreign Press

January 2013 by Uta Buhr

 

 

AUS DER LUFT GEGRIFFEN ODER DIE GESCHÄFTE DES BARON LABORDE

by Hermann Broch

 >Ann-Christine Gruntzdorff comically portrays Laborde's young wife Baroness Stasi as a shady,

cunning hussy.

Despite her weakness for the irresistible airhead , Catharina Fleckenstein as Agnes stays cool with her rival, maintains cool elegance and clear reason. (...)

All the actors remain and act lightly in dance and comedically within the formal framework

of Spiekermann's circled, emphatically displayed theatre of movement.

The saxophonist Anri Danielian plays to this amusingly sarcastic dance on the volcano.<

Excerpt

Hamburger Abendblatt

November 2012 by Klaus Witzeling

 

 

DENNIS · A CHILD CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

 >The opening piece, which was premiered these days in front of an enthusiastic audience,

is called DENNIS. The criminal-psychological drama by A. A. Lucas combines the themes of

child abuse and bullying (...).

The justified and deserved premiere success is partly due to the really well-written

"drama" by the author A. A. Lucas (...).

Thirdly, thanks must go to Esther Barth, Ann-Christine Gruntzdorff, Moritz von Zeddelmann and

Ralph Eckstein, who have meticulously dealt with the immensely difficult material and

have breathed it into their very different characters

with individual shape.

Clearly led by Catharina Fleckenstein, whose art of differentiation and nuance is unsurpassed.

Who has long since left the footsteps of her once famous father, the artistic director of the

Göttinger theatre Günther Fleckenstein, and is pursuing her own headstrong artistic path.<

Excerpt

Godot-The Hamburg Theatre Magazine

August 2012 by Hans-Peter Kurr

 

 

 

SPIRITUAL TALKS

Henrik Geyer, May 2016:

>Some time ago I had some spiritual conversations with creative people. The topic,

that interested me personally was spirituality. What does the word spirituality mean to these people?

Spirituality, what do they understand by it, how do they live spirituality, what use is spirituality to them?

What is spirituality as opposed to religiousness, what does creativity have to do with it, and much more.

more. The question alone as to why so many spiritual people work as artists in the broadest sense is actually interesting.

is actually interesting. What is the reason?

And as Dr. Dahlke shows, spirituality can also be a useful, because healing, tool for doctors,

healing tool. How is it possible that spirituality can heal?

If I were to summarise what I have said today, I would say that the people I interviewed

people I interviewed are intensely concerned with interpretations of the world; they are mindful, constantly

themselves again and again, trying to understand: What is happiness?

How does one live right? What is the important thing in life?

The "right thing" for them is not what everyone says from the outset, but they search within themselves.

Therefore, their thoughts, if they are expressed, may appear strange to "normal people" from time to time.

perhaps strange to "normal people" from time to time. My impression is that these people are often less concerned with money about money or material things. They are more concerned with fulfilment,

balance, a becoming right for the soul, but less about social norms.

They are people who consider their inner worlds to be true and important; who find mystery in themselves and find it interesting.

For me, the conversations were very enlightening and I am glad to have had them.

I found it enlightening to delve a little deeper into the inner worlds of others;

normally opportunities for conversations of this kind are few and far between. I think some things came

that can be called amazing and exciting. I hope that these conversations about

spirituality, happiness and creativity are as enlightening for others as they have been for me.

they were for me.

 

Interview with Catharina Fleckenstein

>... to touch we have to be honest<

 

Spireo: What are you looking for?

 

Answers to the questions: Where do I come from? Who am I? Where am I going?

And that in my "real" life as well as on stage. These questions are part of the

classical preparation of the actor for a role. In other words: self-knowledge

and awareness are what drive me on all levels.

 

Spireo: What do you find in the theatre and nowhere else?

 

The stage is a fantasy space. By opening up and changing the levels of the play, the spectator's

perception and consciousness of the spectator can be expanded. That is the essence of

art in general. And yet in theatre it is nothing abstract, because part of this imaginative space are actors,

people who act in the moment.

When a theatre performance inspires me as an audience member, I inwardly become the child I was when I first sat in the theatre. The quality of the moment has never changed.

I immerse myself in the magical: the light, the smell, the fabrics, the magic.

At an exciting theatre performance, worlds disappear and others arise.

It is also possible that only the demise of one world is described, but in the spectator

the prospect of the emergence of another.

In any case, what happens is existential. It is always a question of "to be or not to be".

I believe in the theatre evening as a cathartic process. In the sense that a process

takes place that leaves all participants on a different level of consciousness than they were on at the

they were at the beginning of the play.

The external action is only a metaphor for the mental processes.

Theatre can manage to suspend time and space, to rearrange our usual coordinates of perception

or to drop them completely.

It is a spiritual experience, with the means of play. In a playful way.

The audience should be touched in their hearts for this. Laughing and crying and feeling

completely involved in the play on stage. To be present and connected with the actors

present and connected with the actors at every moment.

 

Spireo: What are the audience looking for in the theatre? Amusement - and maybe something else?

 

I believe that spectators, perhaps without always being aware of it, want to participate

in this perceptual adventure. Even if they are simply in the mood for amusing distraction.

A theatre performance makes an impression when the audience is touched,

perhaps disturbed and inspired on a deeper level.

 

Spireo: What is creativity?

 

For me, creativity is when people express their connection to the spiritual.

It can be anything, cooking, painting, drinking tea, whatever. It depends on the inner attitude

to what one does. In my case it seems to be play - and also storytelling.

This is simply the area where I most clearly feel the connection, which could also be called intuition.

 

 Spireo: What is creativity about learning texts from others?

 

 Language is always only a very narrow field of expression. If it is a poetic language,

it already contains several levels within itself. But we need all aspects of our creative

expressiveness, physical, vocal, and much more, to create something alive.

The foreign text, the fable, or as they say now,

the story is only a matrix. The essential processes, both in the characters and in their

interaction of the characters with each other, must first be created. And that in every

moment.

 

Spireo: What experiences do you find puzzling in your profession?

 

First and foremost, I have exciting experiences.

When we work together with our ensemble, for example, a kind of "field of inspiration" often

arises in which we suddenly feel like a coherent entity.

Creative things arise within the artistic process that no one could ever theoretically

have conceived. It's as if a channel has been opened through which ideas reach us.

One becomes completely permeable oneself, which is a happy state. Our coming to know

is most like an enigmatic experience:

It was during a production that was fraught with many difficulties. It would have been the

natural thing for all the members of the ensemble to drop out before the premiere. 

In some cases we had to face considerable financial problems because fixed fees were not paid.

But a common force had already developed that was stronger than all reasonable considerations.

It led us on and we played a successful premiere. Friends whom I told about it could not believe it

and doubted my state of mind.

 

 Spireo: Dear Catharina Fleckenstein, thank you for the interesting interview.

 

The interview was conducted in May 2014