The birds have landed: On Saturday, one of the most important cabaret prizes for young talents in the German-speaking world was awarded in the Graz Theatercafe with the cabaret bird. The jury prize went to the songwriter Magda Simmel, the “Steirerkrone” audience prize went to Alexander Hechtl.
The pandemic has left its mark – also in the world of humor. Two years in a row, the Graz cabaret prize for young talent had to be postponed and staged in a somewhat improvised way. This year moderator Simon Pichler and the team of the theater cafe were back in their usual place in the calendar: The week before Palm Sunday belonged entirely to the young cabaret artists Kleinkunstvogels proved on Saturday in Graz: From everyday life on the test streets, to the fabulous arguments of the conspiracy theorists to the loneliness of the quarantine, the six finalists (Magda Simmel, Haze, Ellie, Alexander Hechtl, Andreas Rumpler and Moko) made everything their topic has kept us all busy over the past few months. Winner Magda Simmel brought the misery to the stage in the most pointed and finest way. In her songs, the singer-songwriter sings about the everyday pandemic: “Ode to the Post”, for example, is about her desperate longing for closeness to the parcel carrier. But in her songs she also declares a wall in her apartment to be her best friend. And the question of whether PCR masks help to see a person’s true face is also raised in her language-playful, but never punchy, songs. “With a strong stage presence and great musicality, she humorously brings a serious topic to the stage with the loneliness of the pandemic,” the jury judged. “Steirerkrone” audience award to Alexander HechtlThe audience’s favor was on Alexander Hechtl’s side. With philosophical sensitivity, he explores the contradictions of everyday life in his comedy – from the rules of “good” nutrition to misguided hopes for progress. He packs all of this into fabulous storytelling art, which usually ends in paradoxical insights such as: “What the world needs is one thing above all: tear-resistant butter paper.”
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