Premiere at “Theater … und so fort”
The Woman with Nine Faces
August 28, 2025
Sonja Rupp plays all nine roles in Honey. Thus, the evening on stage relies almost entirely on her shifting vocal range.
The Munich theater Theater … und so fort presents Honey, a Bavarian polylogue about the fragility of human relationships.
Review by Hannes Christoph Meck
“I’d like to emphasize that I’m a little outside my comfort zone,” says Honey, played by Sonja Rupp, casting a shy glance at the audience. Apart from her own shadow, falling to the left and right across the dark stage floor, the actress finds herself alone tonight, in a vast and empty space.
Honey’s life is riddled with problematic relationships. Her mother looks down on her affectedly, her own daughter gazes past her toward the grandmother. The three great romances of her life all collapsed miserably, and her closest friends refuse to understand her. Now her therapist has encouraged her to reflect and muse in front of “various experts”—alias the audience.
Honey, a play by Tove Appelgren, recounts seventy minutes of damaged human connection and the desperate search for understanding. Under the direction of Andreas von Studnitz, Sonja Rupp rehearsed all nine roles of this “Bavarian polylogue.”
The piece has now premiered—despite the cultural summer slump—at Theater … und so fort. The independent theater on Hinterbärenbadstraße, flanked by beige-brown apartment blocks and a Pentecostal church, cannot afford to take a summer break. It needs the revenue.
Rupp leaves gestures and body language largely unused, focusing instead on tone and timbre. As Honey’s mother, she wrinkles her nose and speaks with a pointed, snobbish voice; the daughter’s tone she infuses with youthful defiance. When Honey becomes angry, Rupp leans forward in her chair and lowers her voice to a trembling threat. Only once during the entire performance does she rise from her chair—otherwise she keeps a similar seated posture from role to role. Thus, the evening lives almost entirely from her voice.
In the end, Honey realizes that openness and vulnerability hold the key to a closer relationship with both mother and daughter. Especially in those moments when she overcomes the unshakable façade behind which she hides from their perceived attacks, love and understanding begin to resound in the voices of mother and daughter. For only when façades fall can true understanding emerge. With this realization, the audience, too, leaves the theater on this cool late-summer evening. And for that reason alone, one is glad that Theater … und so fort remains open despite the summer lull.
(source: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/theater-und-so-fort-honey-muenchen-kritik-premiere-li.3300415 )
"Wasserburger Zeitung" Newspaper
A woman searches for her identity
Sonja Rupp impresses with her versatility in “Honey” in the Wasserburg "Gimplkeller"
November 22, 2025
Wasserburg – Last Saturday, the solo play“Honey” in the Location "Gimplkeller" proved to be a complete success. The 60 minute play, impressively performed by the actress from Eggstätt, Sonja Rupp, offered an impressive blend of humor, tragedy, and profound reflection, and was met with much applause and positive feedback from the audience.
“Honey” tells the story of a young woman who, in a moment of crisis, must confront her own identity. As a single mother of four and divorced three times, she is used to enduring a lot. But she feels increasingly trapped between her rational, critical mother Margareta and her 15-year-old daughter Lotte, who longs for the conventional life of her grandmother.
Honey’s monologue gives a voice to three generations, her friends, and her ex-partners, apparently complicated relationship webs and ultimately to her own inner voice.
Sonja Rupp embodied the role of the protagonist with remarkable versatility. In her solo performance, she managed to captivate the audience with great sensitivity and at the same time with intense presence.
The piece, originally written by Tove Appelgren and adapted into Bavarian by director
Andreas von Studnitz and Sonja Rupp, represents a sophisticated connection between theater and acting artistry. The minimalist staging emphasized the richness of the text itself: the words, the emotional world, and the protagonist’s inner conflicts were brought to the forefront, without elaborate sets or technical effects. This reduction to the essentials allowed the audience to fully focus on the story and the performer’s skill.
“Honey” is a play that resonates on several levels. It addresses not only a woman’s journey of self-discovery but also questions the meaning of friendship and relationships in times of uncertainty and change. The story encourages reflection and leaves the audience with a feeling of closeness and connection.
For future performances of “Honey”, additional dates are already being planned.
Interested can stay updated through Sonja Rupp’s website. (mjv)
"Münchner Merkur" Newspaper - english Version
WOMAN at the Limit
„Honey“ at „Theater…und so fort“
Honey actually wanted to be a „Business Woman“. But then she became a single mother with four children from three men. Perhaps that is why she so gladly embodies herself with her girlfriends who have actually made a career. Furthermore, she is annoyed by her overly solicitous and malicious mother and disappointed by her pubescent daughter, who is more like the grandma.
As a very present soloist, Sonja Rupp embodies not only the title heroine but all the characters in Tove Apppelgren´s one-woman play „Honey“. Nothing more than a black chair on a black stage is needed for this, because the event oft he evening is intended to be the actress and the text itself, in the „Theater…und so fort“, where director Andreas von Studnitz staged the piece by the Finnish author in Bavarian dialect. Sonja Rupp´s robust folk-play-like style of portrayal already gives the main character the intensity of immediacy, but supporting characters like the grandma or the psychotherapist with the fake accent succeed almost better for her, because here she is not afraid to overact, but suddenly she no longer overacts.
However, the evening, which is as entertaining as it is expansive, is always interesting because of the treatment of the dialect: the actress, who comes from the Chiemgau region, does not let her Honey speak Munich dialect, even though the plot is set in the state capital. Instead, she speaks a decidedly rural Bavarian („I kimm ma grad fia“ [“I`m just coming to my senses”)], but this is corrupted by the precisely observed traces of alienation that today`s media consumption leaves in the dialect of certain milieus: suddenly, imperfect forms po up where Bavarian only knows the perfect tense, and the worst are the completely dialect-foreign infinitive constructions (“a Kind zum kriang” [“to get a child”]), which make a sharp-eared native speaker want to scream in pain.
Sonja Rupp shines in Honey.
It is precisely through these linguistic distortions, this expropriated “homeland sound”, that the dialect play becomes a revealing sociogram: the foreign-determined dialect most clearly reflects the foreign- determined existence of a single mother receiving Hartz IV benefits, who tries to talk herself into a good situation that is actually just a life story of being overwhelmed.
LOUD APPLAUSE.
By Alexander Altmann / Münchner Merkur
"Donaukurier" Newspaper - english version
Survival Artist
Premiere at Munich`s „Theater… und so fort”: the monologue “Honey”.
By Barbara Reitter-Welter
Munich – She gave herself the name: “Honey”.
but this woman is anything but a “sweetheart”, and her life was no bed of roses either: three men, one a youthful mistake, the second with fear of responsibility and the third actually married. Four children, the dominant mother with a sharp tongue, a rebellious daughter who attacks the “serially monogamous” mother as “polyamorous”, two critical girlfriends who fail her in crucial situations, and a peculiar therapist who encourages her public life confession. This takes place in front of an audience, and that is the audience in “Theater…und so fort.”
The original by the Finnish author and director Tove Appelgren (born 1969), mainly known for cheeky children´s books and as an expert on complicated family conflicts, was translated by Regine Elsasser into a “Baltic Polylogue with nine roles for one actress”. And that is Sonja Rupp, a primal force of acting who jumps from role to role with powerful dialect. She not only switches to different idioms, such as her mother´s High German or the undefinable accent of her therapist, which is a mix of Balkan and Hungarian. She also outlines the different characters with variations in facial expressions and sparse gestures.
All the power comes from her voice, which works with the most varied modulation and volume. A mammoth task for the solo performance of an actress, not only because of the various people she has to play, but also because of the sparse, extremely reduced setting.
Director Andreas von Studnitz has captivated her for the almost hour-long performance on a chair in the empty, black stage space. Ut her solo holds the tension, as she races breathlessly through an unconventional biography. Actually, Honey s a self-determined, emancipated woman – but when it comes to men, her critical assessment mostly fails. The are not explicitly spoken ill of, but between the lines, the heroine lets their deficits on the relationship level shine through. This certainly has entertainment value and makes the audience laugh repeatedly, because despite the serious topic, the text is witty.
The male protagonists in the program notes are not clear-cut, but they are entirely understandable. Actress Sonja Rupp precisely outlines the breaking points and contradictions, but ultimately also the injuries that shape the life plan of this powerhouse, who is a true survival artist. Because honey is now witting there as a single mother with her children and has to live on Hartz IV… her self-enlightenment happens through a confession: Only when her mother (presumably) lies on her deathbed in a clinic can she confess to the truth. And she is no longer aggressive in tone as usual.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION:
Theater: Theater…und so fort, Munich
Director: Andreas von Studnitz
Script: Tove Appelgren
Johnny Depp,
Hollywood and me
Bavarian is the perfect language for the stage:
authentic and emotional.
Sonja Rupp has dreamed of becoming an actress since she was a child. Yet, she first trained to work at a bank. In this interview, the 51-year-old reveals why she's now on stage, how meeting Johnny Depp played a role in that, and how she manages to portray nine different characters in her new play.
We met in her office in Natzing. Because Sonja Rupp is not only an actress, but also an independent financial advisor - and apparently a quite successful one. Countless gold and silver trophies, she earned in the finance industry, shined from a shelf in the corner.
“I went to the bank on my mom’s advice,” she says. “She said: ‘At the bank, you’re always warm and well-dressed.’” So after school, Sonja completed a banking apprenticeship in her hometown of Eggstätt. But even back then, she had a dream: she wanted to become an actress. And today, she is one. She's currently rehearsing the play Honey, in which she plays nine characters. The premiere is on August 23rd at the “Theater… und so fort” in Munich.
There’s no sign of stage fright during our interview—only anticipation. And a deep passion for acting. Sonja Rupp even approached her idol Johnny Depp and asked him if he would teach her how to act. Later, she took acting classes in Los Angeles with Margie Haber, who has trained the likes of Halle Berry and Brad Pitt. But that came a little later. Acting was first a teenage dream—one that never quite let go of the now 51-year-old.
How did you first get into acting?
The dream of being on stage was always there. I remember dressing up in a dirndl and taking a Polaroid photo to apply to the “Chiemgauer Volkstheater”. I must have been around 14. I was invited to an interview, which went really well. They said they’d get back to me - but I never heard from them again. So, I went into banking instead.
You worked in banking and took singing and acting lessons on the side. What made you hold onto that dream?
I just love learning new things. When I landed the role of the dairymaid Maria in “Der Brandner Kasper schaut ins Paradies” in Edling in year 2019, I knew all that learning had been worth it.
I also realized what had been missing in my life until then. That feeling on stage, there’s nothing like it. Funny enough, I had auditioned for the “Boandlkramer” character, but Jörg Herwegh said that wasn’t a role for women. So I played Maria. But I did get to play the Boandlkramer eventually - though not in a formal production. The video is on my website.
You describe yourself as a “folk actress.” What do you mean by that?
As kids, my brother and I did nothing but watch Bavarian comedy theater and all the Louis de Funès movies. So I was shaped by Bavarian humor as well as that quirky, offbeat French style. What both have in common is their focus on what it means to be human and that’s exactly what I bring to the stage.
You speak three languages fluently: German, English, and Bavarian. What language do you dream in?
Mostly Bavarian—at least as far as I remember. Though when I was in Los Angeles, I started dreaming in English.
Dreams seem important in your life. One of them took you to California two years ago.
My dream is being in a Disney fairytale someday, whether as Snow White or the third dwarf from the right, it doesn’t matter. I just want to be part of it.
But what specifically took me to California was Johnny Depp—he’s my absolute hero. When his band, the Hollywood Vampires, toured Europe, I bought a meet-and-greet ticket for the Stuttgart concert. While everyone else wanted a selfie or a hug, I wanted to talk to him. I walked up with my hand outstretched—and he listened to me.
What did you say to Johnny Depp?
I spent a lot of time figuring out how to phrase it. I ended up saying: “I’m a German actor and I want to be the best I can. If I ask you to teach me, what would you say?”
And what did he say?
He said not everyone is cut out to be a good teacher. But that he could imagine it, in principle.
And then what happened with you and Johnny Depp?
Well… not much. I talked to him in July and didn’t hear anything back. So in October, I flew to Los Angeles to meet with his manager. But Hollywood was practically empty because of the big studio strikes. Still, I didn’t let that stop me. I took some trial classes with Margie Haber and then enrolled in her course. It was a huge challenge, pushed me to my limits, and helped me grow artistically.
What was the most important thing you learned in L.A.?
That being authentic is everything. And that you have to convey that authenticity to your audience.
In August, you’ll premiere Honey. A Woman Like a Force of Nature. The play is by the Finnish author Tove Appelgren. What drew you to it?
The story about a woman who always has to be strong, always wants to please everyone, connects everyone, and somehow ends up stuck between all the chairs. I was also excited to work again with Andreas von Studnitz, who’s directed other plays I’ve been in. And the fact that we’re doing it in Bavarian was a big bonus. It’s the language I connect with most and can express the most nuance in.
You play nine characters in this one-woman show. How do you manage that?
Andreas von Studnitz and I worked on it for a long time. By the time we take the stage in August, we’ll have rehearsed for a year and a half—two to three times a week, three to four hours each session. The characters are defined by just a few details but are clearly distinguishable—through subtle shifts in posture, facial expression, gestures, and voice.
Honey is described as a woman like a force of nature: inventive, direct, impulsive, and completely unconventional. How much of that is in you?
A lot. Although I’m a passionate person, I was usually in “function mode.” Especially in my generation, women had to try extra hard to do everything perfectly. There wasn’t much room for impulsiveness or being unconventional. I’m learning that now and Honey is helping me.
(Interview for "Die Rosenheimerin" by Raphaela Kreitmeir – Photos: Janine Guldener)