She is a politically minded person.

That is why Verena Wengler likes to play the alter ego of the writer Ferdinand von Schirach: the lawyer for Richard Gärtner, who is willing to die.

Lawyer?

In the play “Gott”, which was also filmed in 2020, Gärtner (Matthias Habich in the film) is represented by a lawyer named Biegler (Lars Eidinger on the screen).

But: "Each role can also be taken on by the opposite sex," says Wengler.

That is how Schirach wanted it.

And so director Heinz Kreidl cast the roles for his premiere on October 21 at the Fritz Rémond Theater.

Under Kreidl's direction, the actress was in the "ghost comedy" ten years ago.

Theater director Claus Helmer can rely on them: Wengler is one of the most loyal guests on his stages.

Claudia Schülke

Freelance author in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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She used to be a castle actress, but she doesn't let that show off the stage. On the stage, however, one notices the strict school of the old Viennese luminaries Susi Nicoletti and Klaus Maria Brandauer. “From them I learned discipline and absolute diligence,” she recalls. Wengler was born in Innsbruck in 1962, attended the Landestheater's ballet school and ran away from the Ursuline convent school regiment. At the age of 16 she was the youngest in the Max Reinhardt Seminar, in the second year of her training she was the Thekla in Nestroy's posse “Das Mädl aus der Vorstadt” for the first time on the Burgtheater stage. After that, she received a five-year contract, but still graduated from drama school. She thinks back with particular fondness and gratitude to Fritzi Pollak, the elderly Jewish lady with whom she lived at the time.

"Colleagues wrinkled their noses back then, but I was happy"

At the castle she played between the old greats: Paula Wessely, Maresa Hörbiger, Fred Liewehr, Otto Schenk and Helmuth Lohner. She appeared in Ibsen's “Peer Gynt”, in Nestroy's “Jux” and in Hofmannsthal's “The incorruptible”. Then she went to the Schiller Theater in Berlin and worked there with Peter Ustinov, Erich Schellow and Joachim Bliese, who could still be seen in the Rémond Theater in 2018 and who died on September 9th. When the so-called gang of four followed the director Heribert Sasse in 1991, Wengler was dismissed - along with 55 colleagues. She came to Frankfurt to see Hans-Peter Doll, whom she already knew from the summer games in Wunsiedel. With him she played the Putzi in “Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Peter Eschberg, the subsequent director and after all Viennese, she has never met.

At the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater in Hamburg as Abigail in Miller's "Witches Hunt" she found pleasure in free play in 1992. And at the Cologne comedy, where she appeared with René Heinersdorff, also at the boulevard theater: “Some colleagues turned up their noses at the time, but I was happy.” From then on there was only boulevard for them: in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich. 2001 then "Marriage against his will" with Eva Pflug in Helmers "Komödie". In 2004 she came to the Rémond Theater for “Friends to Eat”: “And every year since then. I was never drawn to film or television. This is a really wonderful house with wonderful employees, ”she enthuses:“ Everything works out backstage. ”Lots of professionals who made it possible for her, in pieces like“ The Grönholm Method ”,“ Father ”(with Wilfried Elste) and “Die Niere” (with Sigmar Solbach) to shine.When she played the title role in "Ms. Müller must go", she was then intercepted at the exit with the sentence "We are all colleagues" and thanked: "Loud teachers."

She likes Frankfurt and "the nice people here on the street". But for four years she has lived in Berlin-Zehlendorf and in Bardolino on Lake Garda, where her husband has a house. “I never thought that I would ever get married. But at the age of 50 I met someone who exactly suits me ”: Jürgen Prochnow. She met the famous colleague and commander from the film “Das Boot” (1981) ten years ago on a tour of 65 cities: “The successful piece in private.” They have been married since 2015. "That fits. I am touched by how lovingly people treat my husband, ”says the Austrian who helps him sort through the fan mail. “You can't pay for that with money.” Prochnow has just turned 80, and only one person can compete with him: Pippo, her beagle. "I don't notice anything from the darn seventh year."

GOTT: Premiere October 21, 8 p.m., Fritz Rémond Theater, Frankfurt