WHERE GERMANS GET SILLY

Volksschauspiele Perhaps it is time to visit a little village called Ötigheim, halfway between Karlsruhe and Baden-Baden, near the border with France. There, since 1903, locals have put on an annual summertime show on an open-air stage. It's great, and yes, even a little silly.

Ötigheim’s “Volksschauspiele” is one of Germany’s best-kept secrets, or so a friend kept telling me. I had my doubts. Still, she invited me to stay in Baden-Baden and insisted on taking me to the première: a musical. I don’t like musicals. Of course I was anticipating an embarrassing afternoon of German amateur theatre, full of overacting, wobbly singing, painful orchestrations and crass stage-work; anything, in other words, to please neighbours and friends in the audience.

How wrong I was. This year’s offering is “Im weissen Rössl” (“At the White Horse Inn”), a lightweight, late-19th-century German play about a waiter who woos his boss, the female owner of a gemütlich Austrian pub. In the 1930s it morphed into a brassy, upbeat musical in Berlin, which then travelled across Europe and even to New York. Dr Goebbels called it “a review we’re all quite bored of,” with predictable disdain. Good reason, then, to relish it now.

The sheer élan of the performers in Ötigheim is a pleasure in itself. Around 700 locals participate as dancers, waiters, extras, chorus singers and orchestra members. I was astonished to discover that few of the musicians are professional. Together they make a sleek sound, refined and full-bodied when necessary.

The leads are played brilliantly by professionals (Reinhard Danner and Christiane-Maria Vetter when I saw it), as are some other big parts. The costumes--dresses, jerkins, Lederhosen, hats and gloves--are sumptuous: the result of months of diligent, unpaid village labour. The props department, meanwhile, stops at nothing. Cows, vintage cars, a glass-topped tourist bus, and horses and carts are all manoeuvred into the production, to whoops of audience joy: dramaturgical overload, yes, but boy is it fun.

A truly famous German open-air theatre event takes place at Oberammergau, 200 miles south-east of Ötigheim, in the Bavarian Alps. Since 1634 a Passion play has been staged there more or less once a decade. The next production opens in May 2010. Compared to that, Ötigheim is a right old knees-up, a naughty niece to the Passion play’s sage uncle.

Each, in my view, displays distinct sides of Germany--the sedately serious and the wackily unbuttoned: Teutonic ying and yang. Oberammergau is undoubtedly worth the pilgrimage. Ötigheim, while short on spiritual nourishment, is equally worth seeking out. Just know to expect something frothy, sweet and often very funny: a bit like licking a giant, multi-flavoured ice-cream.

“Im weißen Rössl” plays at Ötigheim’s open-air stage, Unterer Tellplatzweg, Ötigheim, through August. Tel + 49 7222 96 87 90.

~ JAMES WOODALL