You and I

At first there is just a piece of clay. The woman throws it on the floor and shapes it into a misshapen ball. The hall of the Helios Theater in the Kulturbahnhof is silent. She drills a hole in the clay with her finger. Then a second one next to it. The result is a simple nose and a mouth. And the two actors on stage (Marylin Pardo and Mamadoo Mehrnejad) have a new player. Perhaps even a new friend.

Director Barbara Kölling developed the 35-minute play “you and me” for an audience aged two and up. The premiere on Sunday afternoon is sold out, many of the young visitors are still wearing diapers. Nevertheless, it is surprisingly quiet in the auditorium.

“So, so and so!” “No! So, so and so!” The few words are enough for the children to understand: “They're arguing.” It's about the arrangement of sticks at the edge of the stage. A scene that even the youngest children are familiar with from everyday life. One person does something, another messes it up. The children watch spellbound as the conflict is resolved and the actors move on to something else. Clay heads become characters, later friends.

The performance works with gestures and sounds, with quiet singing and drumming. There is hardly any text. Nevertheless, you understand that it is about friendship, with everything that goes with it. Including conflicts, demarcation, rapprochement. It is touching to see the calm composure with which the two actors captivate the young audience and prove that children's plays don't have to be loud and boisterous.
This starts even before the actual show begins. They wait together on low benches in the anteroom of the theater hall until the actors come in, move around the room and throw a ball. They immediately have the children's attention. Only after a while do they look at the little ones. “Do you want to come with us?” Many don't dare yet, hesitantly following their parents and grandparents into the theater.
At the end, those who want to get their own piece of clay are allowed to stay and shape something. A very successful afternoon.
MARION GAY
 

Wednesday, April 02, 2025, Westfälischer Anzeiger Hamm

photo: © Robert Szkudlarek
 

The Helios Theater is celebrating the premiere of a new production for audiences aged two and up with “you and me” on Sunday, March 30, at 4 p.m. at the Kulturbahnhof. The two actors Marylin Pardo and Mamadoo Mehrnejad perform with nine clay heads, few words and singing. In an interview with Holger Krah, the two actors explain what is so special about theater for the very youngest.

“you and me” is a show for children from the age of two. What is the difference for you as an actor when you play for two-year-olds compared to when you play for teenagers or adults?

Marylin Pardo: The narrative form is different: in productions for young people, a lot is about language; with the very youngest children, you tell less with language, which gives everything else more weight and more meaning.

What exactly is given more importance?

Pardo: Movements and also dealing with things on stage. And we always get in touch with the young audience, which is something you don't do with young people, i.e. in performances for older people. Here in “ you and me”, we always take our eyes out of the scene and show the children: “Look, this is what we're doing for you.” For example, when I take a lump of clay, I look at the children - in such a way that the children realize: “As an actor, I have a lump of clay here.” And then I drop the lump of clay, and then I look out of the scene again and say: “Ah, did you hear that?” I don't actually say it out loud, I consciously think it. When we go out of the scene and seek contact with the children, we always act with this subtext. You don't do that in a production for older people.

Mamadoo Mehrnejad: What was very striking for me was that gestures like “thumbs up” have a meaning for adults and teenagers. But for two-year-olds, this gesture has no meaning. Conversely, if something is loud, for example if you throw this piece of clay on the floor, schoolchildren perceive it differently. We consciously look at small children in this scene and give them the assurance that it's not scary.

Pardo: Exactly: by consciously walking out of the scene, the children get the signal: “It's all good, it was planned that way.”

Mehrnejad: Young children need to feel safe in unfamiliar surroundings. But that doesn't mean that you always have to laugh or smile. But we actors have to show them that we are there as adults: “We're looking out for everything, everything is under control.”

The two of you have repeatedly mentioned clay. In other productions at Helios Theater for the very youngest children, you work with wood or water, for example.

What is so exciting about clay as a material?

Mehrnejad: With clay, you can shape something and then tear it apart all at once. Suddenly something is there and then gone again: so first there's a tree and then nothing and then there's a person.

Pardo: We have the finished clay heads on stage, but we also shape something out of clay again and again. Nevertheless, unlike the pieces “ Wood Beating” or “H2Oh”, “you and me” is a material investigation, we also have other levels. It's about friendship and encounters...

Mehrnejad: ...and identity.

Some people might think that memorizing the text for a Shakespeare three-act play and performing it is much more difficult than performing half an hour for two-year-olds with almost no text...

Pardo: No, playing half an hour for two-year-olds takes just as much energy and concentration as an hour and a half for adults. When I say, “I'm playing a piece for two-year-olds”, the reaction is: “Oh, how sweet.” I then think to myself: “What's cute about that?” Of course the children are cute. But there's nothing cute about what I do. Some people probably think we're acting with silk scarves here. Yes, we have a different way of telling stories. But the seriousness in “you and me” is the same as in our performance about Friedel Dicker, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westfälischer Anzeiger Hamm

photo: © Robert Szkudlarek