Nikola Weisse
Inconspicuously conspicuous
Outstanding Female Actor 2014
Born at Belgard in present-day Poland in 1941, Nikola Weisse completed her theatrical training at the Schauspielschule Bochum and made her debut playing Eve in Kleist’s “The Broken Jug” at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna in 1963. She joined the Theater Neumarkt in Zurich in 1971, moving to Basel five years later to take up a position with the city’s theatres. From 1978 onwards there followed appointments at various institutions, including the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, the Staatstheater Stuttgart and the Schauspielhaus Bochum. Between 1994 and 2000 she worked as a freelancer, before joining the ensemble of the Schauspielhaus Zürich under Christoph Marthaler in 2001. Since 2006 Nikola Weisse has been back at the Theater Basel, also performing in Marthaler’s production “Das Weisse vom Ei/Une île flottante” at the first Swiss Theatre Encounter.
Nikola Weisse’s roll call of performances is as diverse as it is comprehensive. She has played Hermia in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, the servant Dorine in Molière’s “Tartuffe”, Queen Gertrude in “Hamlet”, and Mrs Peachum in Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera”. She has worked with directors including Jürgen Flimm, Werner Düggelin and Anna Viebrock as well as creating solo programmes and directing her own productions. In film and on television she has worked with personalities including Klaus Kinski and Xavier Koller. A friend’s prediction in 1971, when she took up her post at the Theater Neumarkt, that Zurich would become Nikola Weisse’s city and Switzerland her country has, as she herself says, come true. Weisse has been appearing on the stage in Switzerland for 40 years. Yet she has no thoughts of giving up, declaring: “I’ll keep on going as long as I can!”
