Tarzan 19.04.2013

On the day, exactly 1 year after I’ve last seen the Show, I was finally back in the Jungle! And this time, the Cast List was perfect. John Vooijs was going to play Tarzan that night, Ina Trabesinger was going to be Jane, and I was super excited. I’ve only met John outside the Theatre, at the Stage Door, and he was so lovely and nice (and he smelled like heaven, seriously!), and since last year I really hoped to see him just once in that role, as my friend Kim told me he was absolutely faboulous and kind of a “Macho-Tarzan” 🙂 And Ina…well, there’s not much to say about her, really, except that she’s got the best voice in the entire german theatre land, making my eyes overflowing with tears and my skin being full of goosebumps – she’s kind of a german Siobhan Dillon for me, just flawless!
When we came into the hall, I felt the well-known shiver going through all my body, because the Stage Design and the sounds around are just one of the best I’ve ever seen/heard, and it always feels like I’m coming home when I’m there.
Sitting in our seats, me and my friend were waiting for the well-known shot of a cannon that marks the beginning of the Show, and we were both actually squeaking when, for the first time ever, we didn’t get frightened by the loud blow. The first few seconds, when the actor that plays Tarzan – that you don’t see yet – starts singing “Two Worlds”, are ALWAYS my favourite, I always feel like melting in my seat. These first few notes are always sung so powerful and with so many emotions, no matter which actor sings them. Hearing John Vooijs sing them, was so surreal, because I knew his voice from talking to him in person, and it sounded so different, and yet, so good. Then the gorillas started brachiate all through the hall, hanging from lianes, and everywhere were jungle sounds and it all had this amazing green colour – it’s just so indescribable!
The entire show was just wonderful. The little boy who played Young Tarzan, Julius Störmer, was so cute, and his acting was SO good, I was actually quite blown away by him. Even his gorilla sounds were just plain perfect, it was actually as if there was a real gorilla on stage, not a little human being. And his voice had a perfect edge to it that made me really enjoy the few times he sang. Melanie Ortner, who was on as Kala, Tarzan’s mother, was perfect again, too, though I feel like the first two shows I’ve seen her in, she was even better than that. Especially her desperate scenes were the ones she really touched me with her acting and voice. Rommel Singson, playing Terk, Tarzan’s best friend, somehow was even more funny than I remembered him to be, and more than once I felt like there were small parts in his conversations with Tarzan that weren’t used in the first two shows I’ve seen a year ago, but I wouldn’t bet on it 🙂 John Vooijs…The moment he swung himself onto the stage on a liane during “Son Of Man”, wearing nothing more than a brown loincloth made me feel really uncomfortable, and I felt my face becoming quite red almost purple, haha 🙂 I only knew him in his clothes so far, had talked to him for about 15 minutes, and it felt so wrong, seeing him half-naked! Anyways, I loved John’s way of acting, he was even more like a child than the other two actors I’d seen playing Tarzan, he had that special edge that made you forget that he is actually a grown-up man who’s supposed to play a grown-up man! In the scenes where there are so many emotions in Tarzan, where he’s so confused with what’s going on in his heart and head, and in his parents’ head, John’s voice was so powerful that for a moment, you could’ve thought it would break, because it cost him so much effort to put out every word. That really touched me. Oh, and Ina Trabesinger as Jane…god, what a woman, what an actress!! She blew me away the first time I had seen her last year, and her voice was just as perfect as I remembered it, and even better than that. The goosebumps I felt throughout her scenes, I can’t count them. And her acting, holy mother, it was even better than I thought it could become. She was more hilarious than last time, and I couldn’t get enough of her. And she didn’t disappoint me, she brought me to tears all over again, not only by singing, but also by acting, especially in the scene in which she is about to leave the jungle with her father’s expedition team, being torn between her love for Tarzan, the wish to stay with him and going back to her life in England. Everytime I see her standing there, with her little scrapbook in her arms, I just want to rush onto the stage and give her the biggest hugs.
When the show was over, there were standing ovations (in an audience that was somehow really really restrained), and in that moment, I thought for the first time that it will definitely will be a very very sad last show on October, 2nd, when the Show leaves Hamburg forever. It actually almost brought me to tears, just thinking about it again that night.
My friend and I then rushed off to the Stage Door, where, apart from 3 other girls, we were the only ones, feeling really stupid…which was no comparison to how stupid we felt 5 minutes later, when more and more members of the Ensemble were coming out, the three girls were suddenly gone and we were the two only people standing there in the dark. We kept waiting, and a few minutes later, our patience paid out, as David Boyd came out. He had been my very first Tarzan one year ago, and of all three I’ve seen so far, he’s by far my favourite, I loved him to bits and guess I’ll always do – you never forget your first, right? That night, he had been playing one of the gorillas and a plant that “dances” around Jane in her first scene, and whenever he had been on stage, I could do nothing but stare at him. I walked up to him, and me and my friend told him what a great show it had been, that he had been amazing as always. I also told him that he had been my very first Tarzan and that he was really really good, but that he also made a great appearance as “a plant”. Ouch. I don’t even know what happened to me the moment I started talking to him, but I was such a stuttering mess! I didn’t even realize I was saying the plant thing, until after he had left, my friend couldn’t stop laughing at me, reminding me that he hadn’t only been a plant but more, a Gorilla – god, did I feel stupid! Before David left, we asked him when would be a good chance to maybe see him as Tarzan on stage again before he leaves the Cast in June (as he isn’t on that much anymore), but he couldn’t give us an exact answer, so I said it’s always kind of a lucky game to catch him. We both asked him for a pic, and he said “Sure!”, and when it was my turn, I placed myself beside him, grabbing his waist and tilting my head towards him, and I felt his head almost squeezing right into my face, and in my head, I was all like “Oh God, don’t lose your composure now and ruin the pic, just smile and enjoy it!” Well, and I guess I was lucky, because the pic turned out to be absolutely beautiful:

When David had left, we were standing there and waited, Melanie Ortner and her boyfriend, Peter Stassen, were the next one who came out (Peter mostly plays Kerchak or Clayton, sadly not that night), but they were apparently in a hurry. Mel said “Bye!”, smiled, and they rushed off to their car. I was still determined to NOT leave until we talked to Ina and had a pic with her, and when my friend told me that the small, brown-haired woman with the thick red winter jacket and a huge suitcase by her side that was standing by the door was actually her, I didn’t know how to react. When she came out just a few metres away from us, there was this short, very short second, where I almost spoke to her, saying “I didn’t know she has short brown hair, you never told me she did!” to my friend over and over again (in the Show, Ina/Jane has long, blonde hair), but before I could, there was a Taxi stopping beside us, and Ina packed up her suitcase, the Taxi driver put it in the trunk, Ina entered the car and closed the door. I was standing there like: “No, you can’t just let her go like that!” and I was staring at the window of the Taxi where she was sat, and I felt a huge smile appear on my face, and suddenly, she looked at us through the window and gave me a huge smile too. No one knows how stupid I felt in that moment, waiting for her to wave her hand at me. I didn’t allow myself the thought back then, but when the Taxi turned around, for a moment, I actually hoped that she had forgotten something and would step out of the car again, so I’d get my shot to talk to her and get my pic…but then, she drove away – and I deeply, deeply regret it today that I didn’t bring up the courage to just walk up and talk to her! Especially because she’s already leaving in June, too, and I will only have one very last shot next month to see her 😦
I hadn’t really recovered from that when finally, John Vooijs came out as one of the last people. He was focused on his IPhone, but walked straight up to us, and I think that if he wouldn’t have looked up in time he would’ve just bumped into us 🙂 We shortly talked to him, told him that his show had been amazing, and again, somehow, I was such a freaking stuttering mess, I didn’t actually think before I opened my mouth, at one point I thought he wanted to say that he remembered us both from the long conversation we had had last year, and I bursted out “Yeah, we were here last year, but didn’t get the chance to see you, so…we did it now.” God, when did I become such a fangirl with lame answers? I soon realized that his mood wasn’t the best, guess he didn’t have such a good day, so I was kind of glad when my friend asked him if we could take a picture with him. He said yes, and we both got our pictures:

On our way home, we were both still laughing and making fun of my stupid conversation with David, and during that night, the word “Pornoflower” was born, which will always mark this night for me! 🙂