Well, let's get started. "I am Justus Jonas," says the man with the flat cap and the padded belly, and he already hands out the menus. Because from now on, there is ice cream. A lot of ice cream. For almost four minutes. A little boy can be heard off-screen, who then lists: Banana split and sky blue, cream, Amarena cherry, and chocolate-vanilla-hazelnut cream. Or how about peppermint, Malaga, Snickers, cinnamon, or mango with chocolate sauce or liqueur? "Doctor Thomas" synchronously moves his lips to the child's voice, while in the background David J. Becher, wearing a yellow Elvis wig, happily smears ice cream on his face and two guests at a table are smoking. "The VPT interprets: All ice cream flavors of the world," is the title of the video, which has been clicked on an impressive 54,132 times. And it shows: If you want to land a hit on YouTube, you don't need stylish film sets.
For almost 25 years, the Wuppertal Full Playback Theater has cultivated what one might call the beauty of imperfect entertainment: David J. Becher has taken a seat this morning with Britta Lemon and Sven Blievernicht in the same rooms as back then during the video shoot, in the Café Hutmacher of Utopiastadt, but his outfit is quite different. While again this time rubber hairs cling to his head, the white turtleneck sweater, on which ice cream once spread, has been replaced by a white full-body suit with children's knee pads and ribbed underwear. Next to it: silver-sprayed 80s school backpacks for oxygen supply and white motorcycle helmets for the upcoming flight into space. On a shiny silver vest with Tupperware applications, a symbol for reliable stage success for almost 25 years shines: "VPT" stands for thousands of fans, for perfect timing and spontaneous punchlines.
"Heroes of the Galaxy" is the name of one of their pieces, in which Britta Lemon, Sven Blievernicht, and David J. Becher tour through the German-speaking area with three other ensemble members. Actually. Because the long-booked series of performances has been postponed due to Corona to 2022. But what is a full playback theater actually? A collection of 70s and 80s audio plays and films such as the Three ???, John Sinclair, Star Wars, Star Trek, Barbarella, The Muppet Show, or Alf. Made of film snippets and music, from which absurd stories arise. "Heroes of the Galaxy" is designed as a love story in space, in which aliens threaten the world and Alexander Gerst becomes the intergalactic window cleaner.
David J. Becher has already stood on stage at the Wuppertal Opera House as Oliver Twist at the age of 15, acting and singing – and yet he would never describe himself as an actor. "I am an entertainer, as I have not trained in the acting profession and have too much respect for it." What he loves is playing with fixed settings and processes – but still without limits. "Our pieces are actually only really finished at the Dernière," says Britta Lemon, who, not least, designs the extravagant outfits of the ensemble. Her source? Primarily flea markets.
In the huge attic of an old printing house, the artist Eilike Schlenkhoff, who temporarily represents Britta Lemon on stage, not only has her studio. Among Styrofoam gears, "VPT" posters, and Star Trek busts, the humorous installations of "SupaKnut" are also stored, who first came up with the idea for audio play recycling and operates perhaps the most fantastic mini-golf course in Germany for a few weekends each year around Utopiastadt: the "Sommerloch".
"Actually, we only wanted to perform three shows at the Wuppertal Theater Summer in 1997." Today, the full playback theater is touring with ten people – 40 to 60 days a year. In the latest piece alone, a whopping 42 roles are spread across six people.
That the ice video was filmed back then in the Utopiastadt is, of course, no coincidence: David J. Becher lives directly across from one of the largest and most ambitious urban development experiments in NRW. "It all started in 2011 with co-working spaces that were supposed to breathe new life into the vacant Mirker Gründerzeitbahnhof," says Becher, who is one of three board members of the support association he co-founded in 2013. The association is, in turn, a partner of Utopiastadt, whose area has now grown to 40,000 square meters, not just "to take it off the market, to secure it from investors," but to develop it: for urban gardening, food sharing, a bike rental, concerts, exhibitions, and soon even overnight accommodations for artists.
In 1882, the Mirker Bahnhof was opened on the "Wuppertaler Nordbahn," whose brick viaducts still shape the cityscape today. Back then, it was still in the green fields, as the city had not yet grown up the hills. As a second main station, it competed with the railway line in the valley. By the mid-20th century, the line gradually lost significance, with trains operating until it was finally shut down in 1991. The station building stood empty, later a doctor's office and a dance school moved in. The platform roof and tracks were removed. The Mirker Bahnhof remained, a peripheral area in the middle of the city – and a great opportunity for social interaction.
"We are basically common good lobbyists in a world-wasting laboratory," says David J. Becher and laughs – which fits with what he managed to establish alone during the first lockdown. Hardly had the "VPT" tour been interrupted in mid-March 2020, when he got started just a few days later: on the internet channel https://stew.one, he interviewed Wuppertal cultural workers in his own talk show "Dem lieben J. sein Morgengruß" for weeks. To give them a platform.
All current tour dates are available here www.vpt-show.de
