Extracts from 4 German Newspapers composed and translated

Little Klaus just ignores the first warning. Boisterously he rides through the land with his own horse and the two from Big Klaus, relishingly he spurs them on: “Gee up all my horses!” But the jovial tone comes to an abrupt end. The accordion, which had just now been propelling the tempo, is suddenly silent. Big Klaus appears and forbids Little Klaus his carefree tongue. Never again may he say “my” horses, for only one of the horses belongs to him.
In his subtle fairy tale world, Hans Christian Andersen has frequently described just how the all-too-human ends tragically. Under the direction of Taki Papaconstantinou, the Frankfurt Theater Grüne Sosse has now staged Andersen’s Little Klaus and Big Klaus – a fairy tale of greed, power and so-called peasant's cunning – in appealing imagery.
Few props are required to bring the fairy tale to life. Tables and chairs represent not only a living room but also the darksome forest, and a potato serves as Little Klaus’ horse, which Big Klaus chops into two in rage. On the accordion, Alexandre Bytchkov bestows even more expression on  the enchanting situations, and Friederike Schreiber is fascinating as hunched, evil, gabbling grandmother, just as Willy Combecher as furious Big Klaus.

 Yet it is Little Klaus (Sigi Herold) who is the undisputed character of sympathy for the children. He has to put up with a great deal of brutality from Big Klaus since, like it or not, Big Klaus has three horses and he only has one. But with much deftness, he manages to play one trick after the other on his seemingly superior counterpart, by specifically using Big Klaus’ greed and pride, until finally, he has completely defeated him.
The fact that not only horses but also grandmothers, beautiful shepherdesses, and in the end Big Klaus too are murdered never appears to be cruel because the players always allude to the situation being acted. They get the children to participate enthusiastically in the play, to ask questions, to heckle, and to stamp their feet like horses. Luckily, grandmothers are no longer as evil as they used to be. In reply to the question how much a grandmother would cost nowadays, one child emphatically declared: “She is priceless”.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Rundschau
Mainspitze
Rhein Main Net