Ready for some hardcore character work?
It involves cocaine, so you should probably read it.
Hans grew up in Southern Germany, near Munich. When he was younger (in between the wars) he listened to the radio constantly and trusted the stories he heard as the radio was probably one of his families most luxurious possessions. His family was hopelessly poor as his mother had no real skills even with a kind heart, and his father was forced out of work when his high ranking position at a arms factory disappeared along with the factory itself because of the punishments outlined in the Treaty of Versailles. So the radio was a source of entertainment and connection to a world he longed to explore.
He wanted to go to America. He wanted to go and dance in Hollywood, he wanted to do anything in Hollywood. But his family extreme poverty left him with no way out. He was drawn to Berlin by the tales of decadence and debauchery he heard. He figured that if he could make it there, he could surely find a way to Hollywood. So he moved to what he thought would be glamorous Berlin at 17 with no place to stay, no contacts, and relatively no money. This shows Hans' oblivious and idealistic nature. When he got to Berlin, he was able to stay in a dirty, seedy hotel for about a month, but he soon started to become desperate for money. He started to roam the streets at night not exactly sure what he was looking for, but when he was propositioned by men, he wasn't hesitant to take them up on their offers as he knew thought it was better than living on the streets. He was gay and in this community he felt he didn't have to be ashamed of that fact as people like him all around.
He got by being a prostitute for a few months but he soon became increasingly unfulfilled and wanted a more "respectable" profession. He went to every infamous club in his area until he found himself in the Kit Kat Klub. At that time, he really had no skills as a performer except for very little inhibition and some natural instinct. Max, the owner of the club, was hardly interested in him or any of the other boys so he just had to return and return to the club until they gave up and gave him a job.
At first he was over joyed because he was dancing and performing and he finally felt like he was making something of himself, oblivious to the fact that his position as a dancer in a seedy club was just hardly a step up from his last job. He would never get to Hollywood from there but he did his best to ignore that fact. He got along with all the other dancers, but it he was clearly no longer the innocent poor boy from a small village near Munich. His joyful disposition remained, but he was becoming increasingly loose and increasingly corrupt. He flirted, he slept around, and he started to play drugs. After a year and a half or so of the same old blur of a struggle to survive and endless decadence, he grew restless and unhappy with his situation.
He started to become jaded and grew jealous of Sally and the Emcee, but he did not like to feel like this, it was out of his character. So he started to delve deeper into drug use, cocaine mostly. He got his supply anyway he could. Before every show, he now snorts a line and for that hour on stage he feels true ecstasy as if he is exactly where he wants to be. But it isn't real, it is produced and ultimately empty. He is living in a fragile state of delusion and desperation. Even if he appears to be carefree and content on the outside, there is always and undercurrent of sadness and dissatisfaction that creeps into his demeanor when the lights are not on him.
We are staging the finale soon, and that is where I will learn Hans' fate. He either is eliminated or become a nazi, an image of a "perfect german". So we will see... either way, some pretty fucked up shit. I always love me some macabre material.
