 |
|
|
|||
|
Interviews
|
|||
|
|
Wolf Rahlfs Philip Fisher interviews the performer in the NSTC 5* production of Eric Bogosian's Notes From Underground Philip Fisher was very pleased to have a chance to meet Wolf Rahlfs, star of one of this year's best Fringe shows and to interview him for British Theatre Guide. Notes From Underground is presented under the banner of the National Student Theatre Company (NSTC). This was set up about 25 years ago by Clive Wolfe who is still championing it in his 70s. He is a producer who ran the National Student Drama Festival in Scarborough for many years and began to select the best shows from that Festival to showcase in Edinburgh. There is also talk of forming a more permanent NSTC company in the future. This is an organisation with tremendous credentials. It has Alan Ayckbourn as its patron and has helped the careers of many big names such as Simon Russell Beale and Meera Syal. In Edinburgh this year, as well as Wolf's 5* show, they have two others including Six Women with Brain Death that has also been given 5* by the British Theatre Guide. This follows on from last year's runaway success, Falsettoland. Notes From Underground didn't really fit in with the NSTC template but Clive Wolfe was so impressed with the work which won the Festival's Company Award for Achievement when he saw it in Scarborough. He asked Wolf, who received an acting commendation, and his director, Joern-Udo Kortmann, winner of the RSC-supported Buzz Goodbody Award, to take the show to the Pleasance. Unfortunately the call came a little late and the only slot available at the Dome was 11.50 a.m. Not the ideal time to consider the excesses that spill over around the American Dream. The kind of audience that Wolf imagines will most enjoy his provocative, off the wall show will probably still be nursing their Edinburgh hangovers if they are even awake before noon. The good news is that audiences are growing and he has had some good reviews which must help. He is also getting into the Festival spirit, having handed out around 5,000 flyers in the first fortnight. Wolf Rahlfs is not a natural to do this show. He was born and brought up in Germany, although he did spend a year in Seattle when he was 16. More recently, he has finished his acting training at Sir Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts and now resides in London. The impressive thing is that when you see the show, it doesn't even occur to you that the performer isn't an American, so perfect is his accent. He and Joern-Udo Kortmann chose Bogosian's work because they had liked the film Talk Radio and after a few doubts about Notes From Underground in a German translation, Wolf loved the original and even adopted it for his final student work. This set an unusual precedent as a solo piece is the last thing that course directors expect. Since then this very portable show has played in Liverpool at the Unity Theatre, four German cities, Scarborough, at the Old Red Lion in Islington and now Edinburgh. This is not going to be the whole of Wolf's life though. In the autumn, he will be working with Shakespearean scholar, John Russell Brown as Assistant Director in The Tragedy of Hamlet and Ophelia and as Ross in Macbeth. This will combine his twin loves. He is rare, as a young man in trying to advance his career as both an actor and a director. He seems confident that he can succeed in both, in parallel, and intends to remain in London for at least a year but will keep his options open. He may return to Germany in due course or try the USA. His next project after the Shakespeare sounds really intriguing. In the teeth of competition from the Disney Corporation, he is part of a group that has bought the rights to Thing-Fish, a musical by rock legend, Frank Zappa. Wolf is hoping to have the chance to direct a full-scale production in the next year or so. His world premiere of a shorter version has already been a success of which he is clearly very proud. This multi-talented man also appeared in the film 51st State with Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle, though his part was small. It is unlikely to be his last film foray. Wolf Rahlfs clearly has great talent and a good future ahead in the entertainment industry. If you want to see him perform, catch Notes From Underground in Edinburgh or the Shakespeares at the Bloomsbury Theatre, commencing in mid-September. His pick of Edinburgh 2002 to date - Boom Chicago's Rock Stars at Gilded Balloon's Teviot
|
||
|
|