About Yma

Interview with the director Dr. Berndt Schmidt

What does the word Yma mean?

Yma (pronounced: “Ee-ma”) is the name of the show. And it is the name of the very unusual lady who takes us through her dazzling world, through special moments in her life.

Yma is a name in the South American Quechua dialect. The name itself doesn’t mean anything in particular for us.

It is feminine, seductive, mysterious and special. In addition, onomatopoeically it sounds very positive.

What is Yma about?

Yma is about an unusual life – the life of fictive protagonist Yma.

She takes us through phases in her libertine, open and, in a positive sense, crazy life. Berlin doesn’t explicitly surface in the show; yet Yma’s life can really only be led in Berlin, because if one word could describe Berlin, then it’s: tolerance. And also tolerance in connecting opposites.

In a thrilling show tornado that draws everyone into its spell, the show combines magnificent scenes from Yma’s life. In the process, a new style of theater is founded that departs from conventional theater imagery and is much more of a dazzling clip from the pop music world.

Who is Yma?

Yma is a wonderful, beautiful stage figure. Beyond the stage, she does not exist. She is about 20 years old, ca. 1.80 m tall – and she is played by a man.

Why is Yma played by a man?

The shows, as I see them for the modern Friedrichstadt-Palast, are about stepping away from gray reality and everyday life. The real world stays outside. Welcome to the planet ‘New Friedrichstadt-Palast.’ Light years away from Friedrichstraße.

A world like that is, of course, artificial, an illusion. A beautiful illusion – just like so much of what is on stage is a theater illusion – and one that our guests love.

A beautiful woman played by a beautiful woman? That is both normal and customary. That is why Yma can be the image of a beautiful woman – just that, too beautiful to be real.

On the one hand, this toying with perception is an art, but on the other hand, it is also a philosophy of tolerance. Because if the one can also be viewed as the other in a different light, then you cannot get very far with preconceptions.

What is important is that the performer who plays the role of Yma as a woman does so perfectly. In the ideal case, the viewer does not notice – or forgets or doesn’t believe – that Yma is a man. The aim here is not to present a garish travesty or crude jokes, but to create the perfect stage illusion.

Yma is a dream of a woman, in every respect, and therefore like everything in a show at Friedrichstadt-Palast…