Stella Orlanda is a young variety artist who can stand her ground like the next man – and not only on the stage from where as a boxer she calls out the strongest men in the audience. It’s a brashness that does her proud on the marriage market as well. She fights for what she wants: »Always sock it to ’em« is her motto in vaudeville and with her fiancé, Theo. In her view, he’s procrastinating too long. His aunt, whose heir he would gladly be, has lined up a more respectable match for him and given him a stark choice: money or the »varietyeuse«. Now, although Stella thinks Theo’s a bit of a ditz, she doesn’t necessarily want him to give him up …

Money and love are thematically linked as a young woman from the lower classes naturally assumes that she can marry a man from a better background. Her candid energy is the opposite of his slow and spoilt disposition.

Rosa Porten renders this Stella physically grotesque, using her trouser roles to box with all the eccentric and courageous means at her disposal. She laughs up her sleeve whenever she sets Theo straight – repeatedly. She’s so mischievous and funny that you cannot but laugh at her shenanigans.

_Annette Förster