Obituary for Otto Schenk: The great insult of the Viennese actor

He was a crowd favorite who answered the phone himself when the newspaper called: about the death of the Viennese actor, director and humorist Otto Schenk.

His last role was Firs in Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard” in 2019. At the Vienna Theater in der Josefstadt, Amélie Niermeyer cast Otto Schenk, then almost 90 years old, as the old servant who haunts the melancholic comedy like a ghost. In a fresh, almost wild production by Josefstadt standards, the old Schenk also embodied the old theater. He no longer really understood what the young people around him were doing; But he really liked the fact that they let him play along.