“Beloved Liar” By Jerome Kilty

Passionate, scratchy, punchy and longing. The love dialogue in letters spanning 40 years tells of the extraordinary, platonic relationship between the award-winning vegetarian poet George Bernard Shaw and the successful meat-eating actress Beatrice Patrick Campbell.

Shaw, the only poet to receive both the Nobel Prize in Literature and an Oscar, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who, along with Sarah Bernard and Eleonore Duse, was considered one of the most famous actresses of her time.

“You my star among all stars, my Stella Stellarum,” is what Shaw called his lover, for whom he wrote “Pygmalion” and was only able to win her over to play Eliza Dolittle with difficulty. The correspondence includes their mutual enchantment, most joyful taunts, expressions of love, admiration of their various talents and, time and again, their passion for theatre.

The BELOVED LIAR was brought to brilliant success in the Renaissance theatre in 1959 by Elisabeth Bergner and O.E. Hasse. An exchange of letters was read for the first time, and the audience was impressed beyond Berlin. Elisabeth Bergner had already played Shaw's “Saint Johanna” in 1924. The poet owes the success of his piece on German-language stages in particular to her. In 1933 she emigrated, first to London, later to New York and also succeeded in captivating the audience there. “Theatre's rarest actress” — that's what Else Lasker-Schüler once called her. Elisabeth Bergner died 40 years ago, on May 12, 1986.

The matinee “Beloved Liar” is dedicated to Elisabeth Bergner and to her colleague O.E. Hasse.

BELOVED LIAR is the first happy collaboration between Helmut Mooshammer and Adelheid Kleineidam. Helmut Mooshammer is known from numerous productions including his 15-year engagement at the Deutsches Theater and continues to star there in guest roles. In 2024, Gramola Wien released his CD “Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke”, a work for narrator and piano, composed by Viktor Ullmann. This concert activity has taken him to various countries in Europe to this day. In the summer of 2026, he can also be seen again in the musical “Cabaret” in the teepee at the Chancellery.

Adelheid Kleineidam has appeared in over 70 television films after several years of theatre engagements. Since 2018, as Späti owner Gabi Hertz, she has been part of the regular cast of the popular ARD television series “Die Drei von der Müllabfuhr”.
In addition to filming, she collaborates with other Berlin artists and musicians and performs biographical readings about Mascha Kaléko, Astrid Lindgren, Alice Herz -Sommer and Lilli Palmer, among others.
At the Renaissance Theatre, she appeared in the Bruckner Foyer with, among other things, her solo program “Die Sehnsucht an die Fenster tragen” 2023 /24 and read from Hildegard Knef's autobiography “Der geschenkte Gaul” 2025/26 there.

10623 Berlin, Germania

In the lobby