I had the honor of meeting and speaking with Halito (16 years old, Arabian), a horse who has often appeared on stage and screen, by now cutting a familiar figure in the Berlin theater-going community. Halito played a small but stirring role in tonight’s staged reading of Mario Salazar’s „Alles Gold was Glänzt“ (All That Glitters), the fifth and final play of this year’s Stückemarkt. „Alles Gold“ won the Hörspielpreis at the 2011 Stückemarkt, and will be produced as a radio play in the spring of 2012 (off the record: Halito is playing coy about his ongoing negotiations for an expanded speaking part in this upcoming version).
Though Halito is quite voluble, your knowledge of ‚horse‘ might not be quite sophisticated enough to follow all his answers to my questions in the video included here, so I have included a transcript of our conversation after the jump.
https://theatertreffen-blog.de/tt11/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2011/05/Hallito-the-horse1.mov
Interview with Halito the Horse, by Anna Deibele from theatertreffen-blog on Vimeo.
You have quite a bit of experience as an actor. Can you describe a few of your projects?
I’ve worked most frequently at the Volksbühne (like Frank Castorf’s “Die Weber”), the Prater (a Brazilian guest-production), Theater des Westens (“Porgy and Bess”), and the Maxim Gorki Theater (“we are blood”). My fahahahavorite project was “Porgy and Bess”, with all its hot-to-trot jazz songs. And I loved working with Christoph Schlingensief, who sadly left us this past year. He was simply a terrific man, a great collogue.
And can you tell us a bit more about “Alles Gold”?
I’d looove to. Mario Salazar’s play takes place in a world of seemingly unfolding apocalypse: anarchists – familiar to any Berliner from the May 1st pandemonia – are literally whinnying at the gates, ready to burn all things capitalist to the ground. A family, consisting of three generations struggling with banal everyday issues like unemployment, love and youth, holes up in their house, watching a brutal reality game show on television. I play Ford, a horse who rides in with their aspiring Indian neighbor towards the end of the play, when the real catastrophe occurs not outside, but within the family.
I’ve heard rumors that you have a very specific diet. Can you tell our readers a little bit about how you stay in such great shape?
I like to eat fruit, like apples, but only as a treat – to keep my figure, which is important for all actors, I stick to a diet heavy in hay. I highly recommend it.
The gossip columnists and mares all want to know – are you in a relationship?
I’m single! I must admit to the occasional one-afternoon stand, though.
When can we see you next?
At the Gorki in “we are blood” next year, when the theater season begins aaaagain!