WESTERN EUROPEAN STAGES

Volume 18 Number 3 Fall 2006

Editor Marvin Carlson

Contributing Editors Christopher Balme Miriam DAponte Marion P. Holt Glenn Loney Daniele Vianello Editorial Staff Jennifer Worth, Managing Editor Harry Carlson Maria M. Delgado Barry Daniels Yvonne Shafer Phyllis Zatlin

Dan Venning, Editorial Assistant

Frank Hoffman, director of the Recklinghausen Festival. Photo: courtesy Ruhrfestspiel

Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Professor Daniel Gerould, Executive Director Professor Edwin Wilson, Chairman, Advisory Board Jan Stenzel, Director of Administration Frank Hentschker, Director of Programs George Panaghi, Circulation Manager Martin E. Segal Theatre Center-Copyright 2006 ISSN # 1050-1991

To The Reader
Our annual Fall issue foregrounds, as usual, spring and summer theatre festivals throughout Western Europe, and this issue is our most extensive such report to date, with reports from the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Ruhr Triennale, and the festivals in Avignon, Bayreuth, Recklinhausen, Munich, Bregenz, Salzburg, and Edinburgh. This section is so large that there was not a great deal of room for reports on other recent work, although we do offer reports from Paris, Madrid, and the Barba production of Hamlet at Elsinore. Other recent reports will appear in our next issue. This is, in all, one of our largest and most extensive issues to date, and we are most grateful to both our regular and new contributors. The annual winter issue is usually devoted to a particular theme or country and we are happy to announce that this upcoming special issue will focus for the first time on the theatre in Great Britain. Our special guest editors will be Joshua Abrams and Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, and essays and inquiries on this subject can be sent to them at josh-abrams@alum.mit.edu. In addition, we welcome, as always, interviews and reports on recent work of interest anywhere in Western Europe. Subscriptions and queries about possible contributions should be addressed to the Editor, Western European Stages, Theatre Program, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, or mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu.

Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Journals are available online from ProQuest Information and Learning as abstracts via the ProQuest information service and the International Index to the Performing Arts. www.il.proquest.com. All Journals are indexed in the MLA International Bibliography and are members of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

Table of Contents
Volume 18, Number 3 Festival Reports Recklinghausen Festival, 2006.............................................................................................................Roy Kift Summer Festivals 2006: Vienna, Salzburg and Munich............................................................Glenn Loney The 2006 Berlin Theatertreffen...............................................................................................Marvin Carlson Report from Munich, Summer 2006..........................................................................................Steve Earnest Summer 2006 in Bayreuth, Bregenz, and Edinburgh.................................................................Glenn Loney Avignon Looks Forward: The Festival Celebrates Sixty Years..............................................Philippa Wehle Avignon OFF 2006: The State of Things before Chaos.............................................................Jean Decock Paris Theatre, Spring and Summer 2006...................................................................................Barry Daniels Barcelonas Grec: A Change of Name and a Change of Direction...................................Maria M. Delgado Other Reports Madrid, May 2006: Where are the living characters?...............................................................Phyllis Zatlin Invaders in the Castle: Odin Teatrets Ur-Hamlet at Kronborg Castle, Elsinore, Denmark.........................................................................Kurt Taroff Olivier Pys La Grande Parade................................................................................................Barry Daniels 97 5 13 27 41 45 57 65 75 85 Fall 2006

103 107

Contributors..........................................................................................................................................................111

Christina Drechsler (on the floor), Karsten Gaul, Ursula Hpfner, and Martin Seifert in Georg Taboris Jubilee. Photo: Matthias Horn

Recklinghausen Festival, 2006

Roy Kift This years theatre festival at Recklinghausen opened against the contradictory background of continuing high unemployment in Germany (national average 10%), record exports and profits amongst the multi-national power companies, a six-year high on the stock markets and a coalition CDU/SPD government, whose only response to the overwhelming wave of globalization and company relocations to cheaper workplaces in Eastern Europe and Asia, has been a desperate attempt to clean up its budgetary deficits at the cost of the poor and unemployed. Recklinghausen is in the heart of the Ruhrgebiet, a region in the northwest of Germany which is suffering particularly from high long-term unemployment. Indeed, in some cities, like nearby Gelsenkirchen, it is as high as 24%. Nonetheless spring, which arrived simultaneously with the opening of the festival on May 1, brought with it two pieces of excellent news for the Ruhr Metropolitan Region, as the new topographical jargon has it. First came the announcement that the city of Essen and the Ruhrgebiet had been nominated as the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2010, the first time that a region as a whole rather than a single town had received such an accolade. And second, around a month before the start of the seven-week season, the Recklinghausen Festival announced that presales were at an all-time high, and that 80% of the tickets had already been sold. Given the fact that this was only the second season in office for Festival Director Frank Hoffmannwho took over the reins after a single disastrous season under Frank Castorf, when audience figures sunk to 25%this was confirmation of Hoffmans decision to concentrate on mainstream, high-quality shows with big names and put authors at the centres of his programme. In 2005 he started with the German enlightenment author Gottfried Wilhelm Lessing [see WES 17.3]. This year he followed it up with a triumvirate of dramatists: Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and George Tabori. The festival opened with a mega-event which had audiences queuing round the block for five days in a desperate attempt to get hold of a ticket for a show which had been sold out months ahead: Trevor Nunns Old Vic production of Richard II, starring the double-Oscar winning Kevin Spacey. At a press conference beforehand, Spacey revealed that the choice of the play had nothing to do with any personal preference. The fact was that Nunn, the former director of both the RSC and the National Theatre, had never tackled the play before and wanted to add another notch to his series of Shakespeare productions. So much for artistic, social and political considerations! More piquant still, Spacey openly admitted that apart from a crack at Iago in his student years and a few walk-on parts with Joe Papp in New York (one of which was a rock!), this was his first ever Shakespearean role as a professional. I therefore entered the theatre with an uneasy feeling that star-stuck mystification would evaporate in a parade of hollow strutting. Far from it. The production, though not a patch on Deborah Warners National Theatre production with Fiona Shaw as Richard, was extraordinarily clearly narrated, well-acted and clearly spoken, not least by Mr. Spacey himself, whose accent neither betrayed him as an American in London nor as a caricature of a member of the English aristocracy. I have dwelt on the simple virtues of staging, for they do at least form the necessary basis for good theatre, something, which, as we shall see later, German directors and actors alike too easily forget in the scramble for originality. Trevor Nunn opted to set the play in the twentieth century. This had two great advantages: it avoided the problem of traditional costumes and enabled him to use large screen video replays to emphasise the social and political background of the play in the form of TV news reports and interviews. Thus, famous speeches were taken out of their usual context and turned into televised press statements to be broadcast to the nation as a whole. At other times, to emphasize the political turmoil in the country, there was filmed footage of turbulent street demonstrations in London, and cell phones were used to communicate the latest developments on the battlefield. Time and time again, this television report is repeated between the scenes. This not only serves as a continual reminder of the personal background of the conflict, but also of the propaganda power of the media in the struggle for power: in this case, absolute kingship, by divine right. Here Nunn is on strong ground once more. He not only emphasises this fact by opening the

Kevin Spacey impresses as the Old Vics Richard II. Photo: Birgit Hupfeld

play with a long pantomime showing us the transformation of Richard the man into Richard the King through a lengthy enrobing ceremony complete with crown, orb, and sceptre, but follows it up with a procession of the Lords of the Realm into a debating chamber, reminiscent of the Houses of Parliament. As indicated by Shakespeare, and usually so staged, the argument between Bolingbroke and Mowbray conventionally takes place in an antechamber. By formalizing it as a public debate, Nunn effectively highlights the serious political implications for the country in the mutual accusations of treachery and high treason. This has the additional advantage that at the end of the play, Bolingbroke (now King) can condemn Richards murderer, Sir Pierce of Exton, for his deed of slander to the divine right of Kings. Before the curtain descends, Bolingbroke announces that he intends to take a trip to the Holy Land to wash the blood from off my guilty hand. Nunn leaves it up to us to decide whether this is genuine repentance or simply mealy-mouthed hypocrisy from a man who has stopped at nothing in his pursuit of power. It might be that this brief description has given the play more of a political accent than Nunn intended. For although Bolingbrokes return coincides with Richards temporary departure from the

country to put down the continuing troubles in Ireland (where else?!), Nunn makes it clear that Bolingbrokes primary motivation is personal resentment for a King who not only banished him from the country but also contributed to the premature death of his father. True, a later battle scene does nod in the direction of Iraq and hint at military terrorism and the illegal slaughter of captives. But this is fatally undermined by Nunns decision to accompany the second half of the play in particular with a series of kitsch musical quotations, including, most horribly, Aaron Copelands Fanfare for the Common Man when Bolingbroke finally takes command. This reaches its bathetic climax when Richards coffin is borne ceremoniously from the stage to a musical background more suitable to Cats. But then again, Mr Nunn was also responsible for the latter. A pity: the experience of producing musical hits seems to have given him a nearfatal leaning towards manipulating audience emotions with unnecessary overlays of music. Nonetheless it is a good show, with a strong cast including a brave performance by Greg Wise as the young Bolingbroke and a particularly strong characterization of the Bishop of Carlisle, a role which is not normally highlighted, by Sidney Livingstone. For my money, Spacey, whilst bringing out the contrast between the formal public dignity of the

absolute ruler and the private cynical flippancy of the manhe has a particularly good scene drinking and joking with intimate friends in a clubcame over not only as too old but too strong for the part of Richard. Whereas other productions have chosen to emphasise Richards friendship with the young Bolingbrokethe Warner/Shaw production even hinted at a homosexual affectionSpaceys Richard seems more related in age and interests to Bolingbrokes father, John of Gaunt. More problematically in this production, Richards actions and judgements stemmed from a deep-rooted stability, maturity, and conviction, rather from outbursts of immature and sometimes arbitrary tantrums, all of which made it hard to believe that he could be so easily overthrown. That said, the audiences in Recklinghausen loved the show and probably showered it with more applause in its six-night run than it had enjoyed in the whole six months in London. Power politics of a different sort invaded the ensuing banquet which traditionally follows the opening show and is open to all those involved in the show and the festival as a whole, including local politicians, commercial big-wigs, critics and their partners. But this year, the main sponsor, a local multi-national power company, not only insisted on taking up most of the first-night tickets as a crude payoff for its economic and political clout but also turned the first-night reception into a clear demonstration of a two-class society by banning secondclass guestseven the Recklinghausen technicians who had been looking forward to celebrating with their English counterparts upstairsto an area below the banqueting room from where they were graciously permitted to watch the antics of the leading social and political players via closed-circuit cameras. Unlike in the USA, commercial patronage of the arts is relatively new in Germany, where the arts have traditionally enjoyed an immense amount of support from the public purse. Corporate sponsors like this one could learn a few things from traditional aristocratic sponsors, and consider whether they are genuinely interested in promoting the arts, or if this is simply a cynical show in a campaign to polish up their own public image in the chase for profits. Recklinghausen has always been an extraordinarily democratic festival. I have no objection to Mr Hoffmann upping his budget with commercial money, but he should step in and draw a line before he finds himself dancing to someone else tune. A triumphant Richard was followed two

days later by an equally triumphant production of George Taboris play Jubilum, directed by the 92 year old author himself. The title Jubilee was originally a reference to the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933 and indeed had its premiere in the Bochum Schauspielhaus in 1983, just a few kilometers down the road from Recklinghausen. It is set in a romantically dilapidated Jewish cemetery in the Rhineland, and opens at night with the appearance of a young neo-Nazi skinhead who proceeds to desecrate the gravestones with graffiti. Unknown to him, the half-rotten bodies of the Jewish inhabitants rise up from their graveshere Tabori chooses to pile the corpses on top of one another as a reference to the mass annihilationsto observe him. It is not only the murderers and their ideological successors who return to the scene of the crime, but also on occasions, their victims, who are now unable to resist the evil perpetrations of the young man by turning the other cheek because, as one of them puts it, I no longer have another cheek! Another of them remarks ironically that he can longer enjoy the smell of burning leavesit is fallbecause he no longer has a nose. Tabori clearly has no qualms about helping himself to any of the clichs associated with Jewishness, and even has the chutzpah to repeat on more than one occasion the best-known, worst-taste anti-Semitic joke in the book: How do you get twenty-five Jews in a Volkswagen? Two in the front, three in the back and the rest in the ash-tray. Here the joke is told, not by the young Nazi, but by the dead Jews themselves, as if to emphasise the harmlessness of words when compared to the reality of deeds. Nothing can hurt these Jews any more, for nothing can bring them back from the dead. All they have is the memories of the atrocities, which they will celebrate in any way they choose, and not in the way we expect them too. The dialogue is at times laconic and reminiscent of Beckett; at other times it takes on a painful lament as past horrors are recalled and brought back to life. But the play is not only about the annihilation of the Jews. Mitzi, a young handicapped girl, recalls how she suffered from the prevailing view that anyone with a handicap should not only be banned from society in general, but even be murdered in the interests of the Master Race. At one point she tells of her secret love for a boy in a long nappa leather overcoat, whose only response was to send her a love letter reading Dear Mitzi, why

did they forget to gas you? The same applies to homosexuals, where an old hairdresser, Otto, recalls how his lover Helmut, a non-Jew, had himself circumcised to protest the Nazi treatment of minorities. As a result Helmut was promptly sent to a lunatic asylum to receive electric shock treatment, after which he hanged himself. The play is shot through with brutal anecdotes, such as the tale of ex-Nazi officers who were rewarded with the Iron Cross, after 1945, for services to their country, Jews who were simply abandoned to their fate by decent German citizens, and children who were used as live guinea pigs for medical experiments in the concentration camps. Tabori lays the facts bare with ruthless clarity and a dry humor which only serve to highlight the outrages further. As one of the characters, Arnold, puts it at the end of the play: Last week I read in the paper that they are baking bread in Auschwitz, and not fathers. At which point the ghost of his father appears with a present of a loaf of bread, before disappearing once more. Arnold proceeds to break the bread and distribute it to all his fellow corpses as a final ritual act of celebration. Mitzi: Tastes funny. Arnold: Were a funny people. The End. George Tabori has written a fine and funny play: terribly fine and terribly funny. Neither he nor the events he commemorates should be forgotten. Eternal thanks to Frank Hoffmann for bringing this extraordinary production from the Berliner Ensemble to Recklinghausen, and to the wonderful ensemble of actors: from Boris Jacoby as Otto and Dirk Ossig as his wife Helmut, Christina Drechsler as Mitzi, Martin Seiffert as the musician Arnold, the radiant Ursula Hpfner as Lotte, Ronny Tomiska as the neo-Nazi, Karsten Gaul as the gravedigger, right down to the brief appearance of the legendary Traugott Bhretruly a ghost from the pastas the ghost of Arnolds father. Tabori appeared once again at the festival, as the director of Waiting for Godot. I had seen his legendary Munich production of the same play some twenty years ago when it guested at the Berlin Schaubhne. There the design consisted of a table and two chairs in a Japanese-style circle of sand with a thin tree. As I recall, the actors sat at a bare table beneath the tree and began to read the play as in an early rehearsal. In the new production we also had a circle of sand, but the tree trunk was thicker (it was even knocked over at one point by one of the actors!). But this time the production was even more self-consciously acted. The prompter sat on

stage to one side of the circle and from time to time the actors would step out of the action to ask how far they were in the text, as if it were the play which was never ending, as well as the waiting for Godot. Taboris playful re-reading of this seminal text may not have had the anguish of his old production but, as usual, the old magician pulled out some great performances from his cast: Michael Rothmann, Axel Werner, Gerd Kunath and Roman Kaminski. As if to play a last joke on those who know the play, Tabori chooses to ignore Becketts stage instructions following the last exchange of the two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon (Well shall we go?Yes, lets go. They do not move.) by having them step out of the circle of sand and walk off arm in arm. Up yours, Godot? Or is Tabori telling us that everything comes to an end at some time or another, even the seemingly immortal Tabori? A few days afterwards we were presented with an evening of lesser-known short works by Beckett, originally written for a variety of different media and now brought together on stage under the portmanteau title of Play Beckett. This time the director was the Festival Director himself, Frank Hoffmann, who chose to arrange the works in an almost musical fashion. The evening opens with Night and Dreams (1982), a wonderfully atmospheric silent play, beautifully lit by Mike Noel, featuring in the foreground a man sitting alone in a chair at night. In the background sits his dream reflection, alone in front of a table, drinking from a cup. On closer inspection we realize that the hand moving the cup to his mouth is not his own but that of another. A fourth hand rises vertically from beneath the table only to sink once more, like the feeble farewell gesture of a drowning person, into oblivion. The three remaining hands join together, as a silent symbol of togetherness, tenderness, and warmth before disappearing into the void. The sequence is repeated three times, ending with the dreamer slowly slumping forward over his desk. All the themes of the evening are here: solitude, endless formal repetition, waiting, imagination, memory, and illusion, the microcosm of the single person in a finite situation presented as the macrocosm of universal suffering, patience, and perhaps hope. The silent world of repetition is built on in the next piece Quad (1980) which is set in a quadrangle of sand. A hooded figure in a long cloak, reminiscent of a Druid priest, crosses and re-crosses the area to the accompaniment of a percussion instrument in the background. The figure is joined

by a second, third and fourth figure, each with his or When did we last three meet? is a clear reference her own particular sound motif and trajectory. The to the opening of Macbeth. Can they be witches? If whole becomes a buzz of sound and music where so, which witches? Are they the Three Sisters? neither do the sounds harmonize, nor do the people They talk of going to Moscow. The Three Fates? ever meet in their endless, repetitive wanderings Three little maids from school? Or symbols of life over the same tracks. Finallyand fatally, because (Vi = vie), Ru (regret, or might it be road?), and Flo of its predictabilitythe figures in this formal doo(the flow of life)? The sketch ends with the cryptic dle, originally written for television, leave the stage remark, as the women join hands, I can feel the one by one and disappear into the oblivion. There rings There are no rings to be seen. Come and Go follows one of the better-known fragments of is a difficult piece to stage because of its violent Becketts canon, Not I (1972), in which the crawling swings between (pseudo) significance, boulevard figure of a woman gasps out fragments of texts in a triviality, and existential angst. Hoffman opted for desperate attempt to retain her memory and identity, the boulevard and, in doing so, destroyed the angst. and above all to survive and assert her transient Here the whole became little more than a trivial existence as she lies on her belly in the middle of a piece of whimsy, sloppily directed and imprecisely desolate desert. Here the head of the woman on stage is scarcely visible. It is her mouth we are aware of in a giant video projection, revealing her teeth, palate, tongue and tonsils in an almost vaginal association. Deep throat, the source of creation. The woman, now seventy years old, recalls her life in the third person in a fragmented flurry of words, trying to give sense to a wasted existence: reminiscences of the premature and loveless birth of a child abandoned by its parents mix with frantic efforts to construct a shopping list and a plea for mercy for an unknown crime to a silent tribunal in the form of a single cloaked listener. This Job-like crying in the wilderness to a merciless, unresponding, non-existent God was given a brave performance by Christiane Rausch. This offering is followed by the weakest of the evenings offerings, Come and Go (1965), a dramaticule featuring three women, Vi, Flo, and Ru, sitting on a bench and reminiscing about their old school days. They each in turn leave the stage briefly, and during their absence the two remaining women exchange an appalling secret about the third party, which is greeted by an Oh of horror. Since the secret is always whispered, it is left to the audience to imagine what the horrific news might be. Who are these three women in turn-of-the-century coats Tabori strikes again: Michael Rothmann and Axel Werner in Waiting for Godot. and hats? The first line of the sketch, Photo: Monika Rittershaus

acted in an inadequate English which failed utterly to understand either the demands of the rhythms or the tone (it is clearly Irish) required by the text. Happily, the evening was restored by the genuinely moving monologue Rockaby. Written in 1981, the playlet features a woman sitting alone, and motionless, yet moving to and fro in a rocking chair, apparently waiting for the end. She speaks only one word, More, in an effortful gasp to keep going, and each time this prompts a recording of her own voice recounting in poetic fragments the tale of a woman, either herself or her mother, in a desperate attempt to keep hold of some fragment of reality as she gradually goes off her rocker (my quote), or as Beckett puts it: rock her off/rock her off/rock her off/stop her eyes/fuck life/stop her eyes/rock her off/rock her off.! Hannelore Elsners beautifully recorded monologue almost convinced me that this portrait of a mind at the end of its tether on the border line of oblivion might actually work more as a piece of a theatre than as a text one can read and re-read at home. Almost. But not quite. The evening ends with two pieces dealing with torturers and their victims (shades of Pozzo and Lucky): Rough for Radio (early 1960s) and Ohio Impromptu (1980). In the latter a teacher figure bangs on his desk, demanding that his pupil read fragments from a book, a sad tale of loss, suffering

and reconciliation, which in this production reminded me vaguely of Ionescos The Lesson. Suddenly we are confronted with mirror-like reflections of teacher and reader all over the stage, recalling the dream at the beginning of the play. The books are closed; the uneasy evening ends. A must for Beckett fans, and at times a reminder, not only of the thin line between creative experiment and hollow formality (cf. Robert Wilson) but that great theatre creates its own unique and unforgettable imagery in objects, light, sound, movement and even silence, as well as the indispensable and inexhaustible medium of words. Hoffmann seems to have a good hand when it comes to formal discipline butas indicated abovehe should perhaps think strongly about his abilities with comedy. For most people, the extraordinarily successful 2006 festival hit a low point with the Festival Directors production of Shakespeares Taming of the Shrew, or as one German critic put it, The Laming of the Shrew. Hoffmann and his dramaturgs chose to see the play as being in some way influenced by commedia dellarte. This might have some basis in theory. In practical terms, however, it proved very difficult to execute, and the few attempts at slapstick were embarrassingly unfunny. Neither was Hoffman helped by his choice of actors to play the two pro-

Marco Lorenzini in a scene from Hoffmanns arrangement, Play Beckett. Photo: Sophie Jung

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Glenn Goltz, Georg Luibl, Ulrich Kuhlmann and Dsire Nosbusch, in a lackluster Shrew. Photo: Birgit Hupfeld

tagonists. Desire Nosbusch, who appears a lot as a presenter on German TV, was making her stage debut as Katherina in Recklinghausen. We were told she had trained as an actress in New York. If so, with whom, for how long and to what end? Her performance, if it may be graced with the word, was all pose and no power. Most fatally of all, despite Ms. Nosbuschs undoubted attractiveness, she turned out to possess all the sexual magnetism of an ashtray. If that seems unfair, I apologize most profusely: to the ashtray. Her opposite, Petruchio, was played by someone who is probably a very nice guy in real life. And that was his problem, for Siemen Rhaak had about as much dynamic sensuality as an accountant with a hernia. The remainder of the cast produced types instead of individuals, as one might expect from commedia. But as the show moved on, with no character development, no good slapstick and no clear reason why the play was chosen in the first place, the evening inevitably descended into empty tedium. Here Godot was the curtain call, and he never seemed to arrive. Maybe its just that I find Shakespeare difficult to take in translation, but I ducked out of Robert Wilsons The Winters Tale, which, as I heard later, was expectedly formally beautiful and prettily cold. Stefan Puchers post-postmodern production of Othello arrived from the Hamburg

Schauspielhaus, loaded down with critical plaudits. But it was the sort of production which leaves many Americans and Anglo-Saxons shaking their heads in disbelief at what Germans can do to Shakespeare. Brechts Threepenny Opera from the privately-run St. Pauli Theatre in Hamburg turned out to be a much more interesting offering. For a start, the actors, led by the well-known film and TV star Ulrich Tukur as Macheath, who made his name in Zadeks production of Joshua Sobols Ghetto many years ago, could actually sing, which is relatively rare in Germany. The production was a rip-roaring piece of brilliantly staged entertainment which left me exhilarated and disturbed at the same time. Could it really be possible to drain the play of any political substance whatsoever? Evidently so. Ive always had my problems with the play, and this time around I began to wonder if it wasnt the plays fault rather than my own. The opening numberthe famous Mack the Knifeis musically so seductive that it is very difficult to place it within any specific context because we do not meet Macheath himself until later. Whereas the song assures us he is a vicious Jack the Ripper type, Brecht himself presents him as a sensual good timer, and a rather loveable rogue. OK, the two might go together and this might be one of those famous contradictions of character which Germans love to emphasize at

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every Hegelian opportunity. But at no point in the play does Brecht show us the vicious murdering side of Macheath, so that the words in the song feel more like a nasty rumour utterly devoid of substance. As it was, we all left the theatre happily humming the tunes, having been thoroughly entertained in the best traditions of culinary theatre. Not even Macheaths much quoted provocative question: What is breaking into a bank when compared with founding a bank? (which was greeted with spontaneous applause by the German audience) could convince me that this had anything to do with politics. Nonetheless, a great show! As in 2005, this years festival had a two week fringe counterpart featuring German cabaret artists and international shows. Unlike last year I made time to look at a couple, and very good they were too. The Australian company Ideas Australia arrived with an evening of poetry and jazz celebrating the Beat poets of the 1950s Ferlinghetti, Corso, Jack Kerouac and, of course, the magnificent howling of Alan Ginsbergentitled Birth of the Cool. At first I thought the live Charlie Parker-like music was the real thing. I later discovered it was specially written by the bands highly talented saxophonist and clarinettist, Paul Cutlan. He was accompanied on percussion and vibes by Fabian Hevia; Steve Arie backed them both with a thumping, relaxed bass. All of this was in the service of a fascinating narration, dynamically delivered by John Turnbull, one of the two creators of the show, along with director Camilla Roundtree. It is a pity that Frank Hoffmans team opted to place the group in the spruce foyer of a bank instead of a steamy, low-lit cellar. Its a tribute to the group that they more than survived the inadequate surroundings. Back in the fringe tent I was overjoyed to wit-

ness an American show called all wear bowlers performed by two brilliant actors, Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford. This was not so much a nice connection with the Beckett theme, but more Laurel and Hardy meets Magritte in a flashy display of film, stunts, audience participation, ventriloquism and impeccable clowning. Take a look at this, Mr. Hoffmann, if you want to see really comic virtuosity at its most finely honed. A hit, a palpable hit, that has already played off-Broadway. Hoffmans policy of presenting new plays continued this year, but I am unable to comment because I was in Paris at the time. That said, I did catch a breathtakingly dynamic alternative circus show called ImMortal, presented by a group of charmingly scruffy wandering players from Wales who might easily have stepped right out of the streets of Chaucers Britain, called Nofit State. Whether this is a reference to the legendary British 1960s circus and jazz group called Welfare State, I cannot say. The show, and the accompanying jazz, were equally raw and full of subversive energy, fun, and most importantly, talent and skill. It only remains to note that the pre-festival booking orgy did indeed result in an all-time record of ticket sales. Hoffmann might incur the wrath of a tiny minority of Castorf fans, but at least he has the justified satisfaction of bums on seats, and has regained the confidence of the Recklinghausen audiences within an extraordinarily short period of time. He can now surely afford to take a few more risks in the repertoire, make a stronger stand against potentially bullying sponsors (Recklinghausen is traditionally a workers festival with a strong democratic tradition), and avoid directing comedies, at least for the next few years.

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Summer Festivals 2006: Vienna, Salzburg and Munich

Glenn Loney 2006 seems to be the year of anniversaries. Sigmund Freud, Henrik Ibsen, Bela Bartok, Bertolt Brecht, and Rembrandt are all being honored with special exhibitions and even some performancerelated events. But this past summer was also an anniversary-time for five major European festivals. Richard Wagners Bayreuth Festival, inaugurated in 1876, was celebrating its 125th anniversary, even though it was not operational in all of those succeeding years. The Munich Festivalinitially created as a counterpoise to Bayreuth, also in 1876could claim a 125th birthday as well. But it was instead marking the departure, after a twelveyear tenure of Intendant Sir Peter Jonas. Max Reinhardts Salzburg Festival, founded in 1920, was clocking some 86 years. Austrias other major summer opera and theatre event, the Bregenz Festival, was celebrating 60 years, as was the Edinburgh Festival. But perhaps the most important performing arts anniversary was that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts 250th Birthday, which is being celebrated all year long in Salzburg, where he was born. But in Vienna, where Mozart finally made his mark musically, it was Mozart Everywhere and All the Time. All twenty-two of his operasor fragments thereofwere staged in the capitals three state opera houses: The Staatsoper, the Volksoper, and the Theater-an-der-Wien. Mozart Jahr Wien 2006: Making Mozart Relevant Dr. Peter Marboe, the Intendant of Viennas Mozart Year 2006, says the concept of the entire year of celebrating Mozarts 250th Anniversary could be aptly summarized in this question of an 8-year-old-girl: Where is Mozart now? Instead of spectacular productions although all of Mozarts operas, sacred-music, and secular musical-compositions are being performedor exploitative promotions, Viennas announced intent is to explore Mozarts meanings for us today and in the future. Thus, this year has beenand continues to betwelve months of,encounters with Mozart, both the man and his music. Over fifty artists have been commissioned to explore the Miracle of Mozart from their own perspectives. Recently, Viennas historic Theater-an-derWien was raised to the exalted level of the third of Viennas operas. Appropriately, the theatre has been producing a number of Mozarts operas, as are the other two opera houses, in order to have his entire canon on view during the year. British director Keith Warners innovative staging of Don Giovanni at the Theater-an-der-Wien had been on my proposed program, but, at the last minute, a schedule change had the production in Budapest at the time I was in Vienna, but there were two Mozart-related productions on view. One was inspired by The Magic Flute; the other, by Don Giovanni. Instead of Mozarts Magic Flute, Sarastros Traum von der Zauberfltegekrzt! This charming and intelligent chamberopera is not exactly Mozarts Magic Flute, but not a note of it is not Mozarts. Musical elements have been rearranged, and, in some cases, edited. And it is, after all, titled Sarastros Dream of the Magic Flute, not Mozarts Vision. The story is rather different from the traditional opera, being partly based on Emanuel Schikaneders original libretto. Here, Sarastro and the Queen of the Night seem to be a married couple and fond of each other. But Sarastro goes off into the mysterious beyond, and she will not follow him there. Thus begins the conflict between the powers of the Night and those of the Light. Fortunately, in the end, all the couples are reunited: Tamino and Pamina, Papageno and Papagena, Sarastro and the Knigin! Holger Bleck had the idea for this version, Gabriel Baryilli arranged the texts, with instrumentation by Wolfgang Liebhart. This is ingeniously accomplished, and it cuts hours off the performance time. The entire production was performed in a Peter Brook-like white box: a not-quite-EmptySpace, as there was a kind of rock at one side. The simple costumes of white and light blue could have been summer pajamas or Hindu garb. The admirable cast included Claudia Em Camie as the Queen; Arno Weinlander as a kindly Sarastro; Thomas Tischler as a troubled Tamino, Judith Halsz as a panicked Pamina, Bryan Rothfuss as a playful Papageno, and Berit Barfred-

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Jensen as a charming Papagena. Baryilli staged simply, with Daniel Hoyem-Cavazza conducting. This is a production that should be more widely seen. The work itself, in other stagings, will certainly find small ensembles who will have success with its many charms and deeper intimations. Klangbogen Wien Offers Not Don Giovanni, But Don Juan Kommt aus dem Krieg Erik Hsgaards Don Juan Comes Back from War is a disturbing chamber opera in an ingeniously Minimalist production that would make a very attractive addition to many repertoires. Staged in the cavernous, six-balconied Semper Depotwith its great cast-iron columns thrusting upwardthe opera unfolded on and around a series of tan-covered uneven cubic forms, with a central scaffolding rising to the ceiling, supporting a sack of sand that eventually runs out, just like Don Juans luck and life. Erik Hsgaard has based his Neufassung on the satiric, nihilistic black comedy of dn von Horvth, whose drama bears the same name. Indeed, the opera seems essentially to be Von Horvths text, sung powerfully by one intense male voice and a bevy of thrilling female voices. The Vienna Klangbogen production was the world premiere of the Neufassung, but I have no idea what the Altfassung may have sounded like. If, indeed, there was a predecessor. Von Horvth is best-known abroad for his Tales of the Vienna Woods, but most of his dramas have a sharp-edged, central European, between-the-wars bitterness that does not translate well to American stages. Don Juan shares in the fatalism and hopelessness of other Von Horvth works. And his Don Juan is rather more modern than that of either Beaumarchais or Da Ponte. The war is over and Don Juan is working his way back from the front through, with, and around a variety of women. Some remind him of past loves. He reminds them of lovers and husbands lost in the war. Their encounters are cynical and brief. He meets them in a theatre at the front, in the street, in a caf, in a hospital, and even in an opera loge. From the front, Don Juan has been writing letters to a girl he seduced and abandoned, but he has never had an answer. He does not know that she has died, and her bitter, aged grandmother has saved all his letterswhich she never gave to the girl hoping for revenge. When he does appear on the scene, his dead loves younger sister accuses him of

rape. At last, he freezes to death on the grave of the woman he wronged. Christian Miedl,an actor of many moods and a singer of subtle emphases, was excellent as Don Juan. The rest of the female cast, playing men and women variously, were also of the highest caliber. They included Rebecca Nelsen, Petra Simkova, Ulla Pilz, zlem zkan, Tamara Gallo, Elvira Soukop, Gisela Thiesen, and Anna Clare Hauf, as the bitter old Grandmother. Walter Kobra conducted, but the orchestral score did not really support the vocal score. Rather, it seemed to provide a minimalist, Webern hoot-and-tinkle counter sound. Frankly, the opera would have been much more impressive with only the unaccompanied voices. Nonetheless, this production and this cast should be more widely seen and heard. Fifty Years at the Salzburg Festival This past summer was my 50th Anniversary at the Salzburg Festival. At UCBerkeley in 1950, I had written a senior thesis on the amazing career of Max Reinhardt, inspired by his miraculous and widely-toured production of The Miracle. In London, Reinhardt re-staged his Continental version of The Miracle in the vast arena of Olympia, with actors rising out of the ground. But, in Manhattan, Reinhardt had the celebrated designer Norman Bel Geddes convert the Century Theatre into a cathedral. So Max Reinhardt was the reason, in 1956, that I made a point of coming to Salzburg to see some productions of the post-war Festival, before I took up my teaching duties on US Air Force bases in eastern France. I wanted to see the famous city and the two Mozart houses, of course. But, more than that, I wanted to see the actual theatres Reinhardt and his colleagues had created: the Kleines Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule, where the famed Faust-Stadt had been erected. And, perhaps a performance of Jedermann. Since that summer, I have seen many Jedermanns, not to mention all the Mozart one can manage. Mozart in Salzburg: All Amadeus Operas on View Jrgen Flimm, the Festivals new Intendant, has said that he wondered whether Intendant Peter Ruzicka could actually bring it off: that is, the staging of all twenty-two Mozart operas, Singspiels, and opera-fragments. He has not only

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Claus Guths dark Nozze de Figaro. Photo: courtesy Salzburg Festival

done so, but with notable success. This was made possible by reviving important previous stagings, mounting new ones, plus inviting interesting productions from some other opera theatres. Nonetheless, there remains the question of whether some of the early or fragmented works are really that compelling and stage-worthy. Recently, The New York Times suggested that the attempt of Lincoln Centers Mostly Mozart festival to do just that was close to an artistic and aesthetic disaster. Figaro with Feathers: Cupid on Stage, But Without Arias! Such was the demand for tickets to the new Salzburg Figarostarring Anna Netrebko, who was given Austrian citizenship at the outset of the Festivalthat I was unable to get a seat. All was not lost, however. Sitting in a small hotel room in Vienna, I saw the new productions premiere live on Austrian TV. Unfortunately both available channels were set so low one could hardly hear Anna, Ildebrando DArcangelo, and Bo Skovhus singing the roles of Susanna, Figaro, and Count Almaviva. What was visible, however, was the grand Treppenhaus, or staircase, that dominates the heart

of Count Almavivas grand palace. All the action took place up, down, and around this imposing work of architecture. It was clear that all of the singers were in very good voice, and that they were really living their parts, especially Ildebrando, Anna, and Bo. In fact, at one point, the jealous Figaro lost control and savaged poor Cherubino, whom he customarily only mocks and spoofs. This may not be in tune with the merry comedy Beaumarchais and Da Ponte had originally imagined. But director Claus Guth is noted for his ability to find the dark side of previously seemingly obvious operas. Unfortunately, Figaro is not an opera with feathers: Papageno has no place in the Almavivas palace! Indeed, at some points, the stage was so littered with little white feathers one wondered why Susanna didnt do a bit of sweeping up. But the real reason for all the feathers was not the Counts having burst a feather bed, trying to take Susanna on her wedding day. The feathers seemed to fall from Cherubim, a kind of small-winged Cupid who at times manipulated the various lovers like a puppetmaster. This role also involved giving a few kicksin-the-pants for emphasis. Uli Kirsch played this non-speaking, non-singing role with relish and a

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great deal of athleticism. But this visual gloss on the various amorousor unhappycouples seemed totally unnecessary. The passionate power of the various portrayals made relationships and emotions quite clear. Ascanio in Alba: Also in a Body Bag! What do Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius all have in common? They were all family, escaping the burning ruins of Troy. It was Aeneas duty to found Rome, and in Mozarts teenage opera, it is Ascanios duty to found a splendid new city in Alba for a group of feckless shepherds and shepherdesses. This short pastoral opera was composed by the 15-year-old Mozart for the wedding of the 17-yearold Archduke Ferdinand to Beatrice dEste of Modena. The wedding deal was that Habsburg Austriathrough Ferdinand and Beatricewould inherit the Duchy of Modena, once the male Este Line had died out. The Salzburg Festival program for Ascanio in Alba makes much of the fabled motto: Tu felix Austria nube(You Happy Austria Marrywhile other monarchies fight wars to protect themselves and add territories). So you could imagine that in Mozarts charming little opera with a libretto by Giuseppe PariniFerdinand might be seen as Ascanio, fated to marry the nymph Silvia, or Beatrice dEste. In Parinis libretto, the Austrian Empress is metaphorically and mythologically saluted as the Goddess Venus, whose son is Ascanius. She has made all the arrangements for the coming marriage, although the future King and Queen of Alba have never seen each other. Venus, however, has let Silvia see Ascanius in her dreams, which have inspired her with longing. Nonetheless, Venus wants to test Silvias virtue and so has forbidden Ascanio to reveal himself to his future bride. Once face with the reality, Silvia seems a bit disappointed but is determined to marry him anyway. In the current production of Mannheims National-Theater, guesting at the Salzburg Festival, Ascanio is first discovered, as Venus drags him to a kind of podium. He seems lifeless, zipped up in what looks like a sleeping bag with arms. A fellowcritic assured me this is supposed to be a body bag! Somehow, Venus breathes life into the shaky lad, but she also carries around a padded security blanket for him when he is panicky. Although Mozarts score is not mature, it is delightful. Understandably, Ascanio in Alba is not

very often performed, but in this Mozart-Jahre, it can hardly be ignored. When the audience enters Salzburgs Jugendstil Fellner and Helmer Landestheater, it sees the open stage and what appears to be an abandoned tennis court. In the second section of the opera, this is covered over with a black tarp on which have been outlined complete and incomplete rectangles and parallelograms, rendered in phosphorescent red and green. As the audience again enters the auditorium, they are handed red and green-lensed paper spectacles. Yes! You can see the drawings on the black tarp in 3-D! How this visual effect serves the opera remains a mystery. But thats not the only special effect. Upstage right is what appears to be a silver cargo container. Two doors open in its side to reveal Venus and various Shepherds, who seem to be some kind of elite troupe of soldiers, or perhaps a drill team, equipped in knock-offs of Baroque court uniforms for servants. They do perform some military-like drills, and, at various times, they also shake, jerk, and flail about like mass victims of St. Vitus Dance. But this strange disease also severely affects Ascanio and the Two Voyagers who help the audience understand what is going on in the plot, where the characters are, and what arias, duets, or terzzetti are coming next, by actual number. These two tall, androgynous figures, Christian Banzhaf and Katherina Vtter, dressed in blue jeans, blue blazers, and low-cut T-shirts, set the scenes, call out the numbers, and speak the recitatives that ordinarily would have been performed by the singers. The opera is sung in the original Italian, but the voyagers speak in German, so the mostly German-speaking audience can figure out what is supposed to be happening; you would never know from what is shown on stage. And as Salzburg is an International Festival, the super-titles are in English! Christof Hetzer is responsible for the settings, props, and costumes. Early on, one major prop is a wooden tribune on wheels. This Venus mounts from time to timeclimbing a ladder of dowels rather than stepsto address the troops. There are also forty rectangular panels of green plastic: stiff, but flexible. This can be piled up to make a podium, or spread around on the stage. The panels are also very handy in drill-formations, the Mannheimer Bewegungschor being especially adept at moving in sync,when they are not spastically rolling around and jerking on the floor.

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Almost in Halleins Salt-Mines: Tartuffe with Confetti and Streamers! Imagine a play opening with a finale that would be a blockbuster on Broadway at the end of a major new musical. As the Salzburg Festival audiences file into the old salt-dryinghall of the Hallein Salt Mines, seating themselves on tiered woodenbenches, all they see before them is a vast space, entirely black and virtually empty: no sets, no drops, no furniture, no props. Considering the astronomical price of tickets, there is an audible sigh. Where are the sets? All that can be seen are some banks of lights plus some gizmos that look like dead spotlights and improvised cannons. From three below-stage apertures at the rear of the space, elegantly dressed actors begin to emerge. As they slowly and sinuously advance toward the spectators, they casually but deliberately throw marvelously long, brightly colored serpentine spirals before them, until the stage floor is littered with rolls and rolls of bright, basic colors. Suddenly, the air is filled with cannonades of brilliantly colored confetti, blasted from the four air blowers on either side of the space. The black things that looked like spotlights at first are compressed-air tanks, firing salvos of brightly colored streamers. This continues until the stage is awash in mounds of streamers and confetti, with hundreds of streamers now hanging from the wooden rafters above the space. The actors can hardly move among all this colorful paper. This is absolutely amazing, but also fundamentally unsettling: This is the way a musical should end, not begin! Where can a classic comedy by Molire go after such an opening? Nowhere but down, you might think, but no! Although no more salvos of serpentine or cannonades of confetti shoot through the air, the original onslaught is sufficient to dress the stage with crescendos of clashing colors through which the characters have to wade while engaged in a fundamentalist family drama that makes TV classics like Dynasty and Dallas seem tame. There are jubilant fanfares: the cast sings and sways to modern modalities. Indeed, throughout the show, the musical moments suggest that this production could easily be pushed across the borders into musical satire. Tartuffe sings? Orgon orgiastically escalates evangelical hits? Dorine

Diana Damrau as a flippered Faun in Ascanio in Alba. Photo: courtesy Salzburg Festival

The most charming and comic moment, however, arrives when the amazing Diana Damrau is gently lowered from the flies in a swing! She is the Faun, but she is more like a double mermaid, as each foot terminates in two flippers, which she sweetly flaps about. Damrauwho is also a brilliant Queen of the Nightwas not only thrilling in her aria, but also showed herself to be a charming comedian, as one of the Voyagers pushed her swing from side to side in front of a wonderful baroque painting that could have been by Titian. Iris Kupke was a very good Venus, with Marie-Belle Sandis a fine Sylvia. As Ascanio, Sonia Prina was at times vocally challenged, but the direction would have worn down anyone. Adam Fischer conducted the Mannheim National-Theater Orchestra from the harpsichord, but the thirty-some instrumentalists seemed cramped in the Landestheaters small pit. It may have cramped their sound as well.

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dances? Elmire, wearing a very slinky sequinedgown, vamps and seduces Tartuffe? All this may very well sound like a long way off from Molire, but important text from the original drama is included in this production, although often hilarious riffs are played on them. The ingenious director Dimiter Gotscheff has also somewhat freely adapted this text from a translation by Benno Besson and Hartmut Lange. Considering the political activity and the voter clout of Americas fundamentalist religious fanatics, this dazzling production makes Tartuffe seem as modern as tomorrow. In fact, this ThaliaTheater show has more contemporary resonance as an American experience than a European one. There arent as many pious fanatics in the European Union as there are in the American Union. In his own time, Molire did not directly attack the French Roman Catholic clergy, although there was an implicit criticism. Instead, he targeted the fraternities of super-pious laity who made it their business to supervise and censor the morals of others. Tartuffe, of course, was one of these, and Molire mercilessly exposed him as a lying hypocrite. His dramaturgic sleight-of-hand was to have a noble representative of the King arrive to pardon Orgon his brush with political intrigue, arrest Tartuffe, and restore all Orgons possessions, which he had foolishly signed over to Tartuffe. His Majesty was flattered with Molires royal solution

to the plays problems. Director-adaptor Dimiter Gotscheff will have none of this. He returns to what must have been Molires original concept: there is no pardon for Orgon. He is totally compromised, financially ruined, and socially destroyed, with his family alongside him. Tartuffe now legally possesses his house, his goods, his furnishings, and all his treasure. He sends his Agent, a smartly-suited lawyertype, to drive the crushed, naked, despairing Orgon away by hissing like a snake at Orgon and his Christ-crazy old mother, Madame Pernelle. As the crestfallen family looks on, the Agent summons a crew of furniture movers from the depths upstage. The director and his cast use a strange stylistic quirk that seems confined to performers in Deutsch-Sprachigen-Raum. Some speeches are delivered softly, naturally, even reasonably. Then, suddenly, an actor will begin to bellow and rant his lines. In classic tragedies and serious modern dramas, this often signifies great acting to Germanspeaking audiences, but it works very well in this production, for there is very much in both emotion and situation that evokes such power and passion. Still, for a longtime reviewer who remembers the rants of Adolf Hitler at Nuremberg Party Rallies, this tactic recalls Der Fhrer in action. Norman Hacker was a brilliant and seductive, but cold-blooded Tartuffe, more than a match for the simple-minded piety of Peter Jordans obtuse

This is only the beginning of Dimiter Gotscheffs Tartuffe. Photo: courtesy Salzburg Festival

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Orgon. Angelika Thomas was even more of a religious fanatic as Mme. Pernelle. Judith Rosmair an audience favoritewas a wonderfully comic and wise Dorine. Others in the admirable cast were Paula Dombrowski, Andreas Dhler, Anna Blomeier, Ole Lagerpusch, Helmut Mooshammer, and Christopher Rinke, with the hissing snaketongue! The paper-strewn set was the concept of designer Katrin Brack, with Barbara Aigner providing the very trendy costumes. The lighting design of Henning Strick was also very important, and the musicsome of it ironically familiaris credited to Sir Henry. The Hamburg Thalia-Theater production of Molires Tartuffe is a winner. Abduction in the Haus fr Mozart First things first: the singing of the principals in the Salzburg Mozart 22 revival of Die Entfhrung aus dem Serail was simply splendid. Bouquets and applause for Laura Aikin as a confused Konstanze, Valentina Farkas as a very lively Blondchen (who in this production was not blonde), Charles Castronuovo as a handsome Belmonte, Dietmar Kerschbaum as a charming, lovable Pedrillo, and Franz Hawlata as a devilish Osmin with wings, and also as Bassa Selim, who really has no role in this reimagining of the original libretto. Ivor Bolton conducted the tumultuous affair with obvious relish. These very talented performers deserve even more credit as actors, considering the fanatically detailed actions they are required to replicate in this very busy and physical production, which often borders on knockabout farce. Any misstep and someone could have been badly hurt, as the two upstage turntables madly revolved, laden with platoons of brides and grooms and an immense threetiered wedding cake, ingeniously formed and topped with a formally dressed wedding couple. In fact, small dolls of a bride-and-groom cake-topper were much in evidence during the proceedings. At one point, they functioned as hand-puppets, manipulated by Osmin, with an immense TV monitor as his Punch and Judy booth. This production could be called Mozarts version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but there are, in fact, double that number in Herheims staging: fourteen brides for fourteen grooms! If you are familiar with the original plot and libretto of Abduction/Entfrhung, you may well

be wondering where all these couples came from. They are certainly not figments of Mozarts imagination. Nor of his librettist, Christoph F. Bretzner, who adapted the noble Christian lovers vs. lecherous Turks plot from Johann Gottlieb Stephanie, Jr. In these times of friction, Bretzners plot can be an embarrassment for those seeking mediation and dialogue among the great religions. The current staging is a long way off from the middle east, Mozarts score and the original libretto. As recreated by director Herheim and his dramaturg, Wolfgang Willaschek, this is no longer a work concerned with the passion of a Pasha for a beautiful Christian woman, plus the infatuation by the keeper of his harem with her saucy maid. It is, instead, all about Eve. Or Adam and Eve, who appear naked during the overture. Suddenly conscious of their sex differences, they cover themselves with embarrassment and fig-leaves. Its all downhill between men and women after that. Can a woman trust a man? And vice-versa? Does passionate sex have to hurt so much? Can heaps of wedding gifts in huge boxesincluding a iron and ironing board, a washer and a microwavemake up for all the other things a woman has to sacrifice in marriage? The stage is filled with red-ribboned giftboxes. Mozarts original arias, duets, trios, and choruses remain, but the original words and the emotions implicit in his music do not often relate to the quarreling loversBelmonte and Constance and Pedrillo and Blondchenformally dressed and ready for weddings. As staged by Herheim, Konstanzes major aria, Marter aller Arten, is virtually lostor incomprehensiblein the midst of the frantic stage business. It doesnt really relate to what is visually occurring, nor to the emotions in the music. As this opera is not an Italianate opera seria, but a German-language Singspiel, there are no sung recitatives. Instead, between the arias, the dialogue is spoken. And the dialogue of this Herheim/Willaschek version has virtually nothing to do with the original libretto. Instead, much of itincluding the English translations shown in the super-titlesis fairly slangy, raffish, and even vulgarly suggestive. But, in case the words dont make male-female problems clear, there is also mimed groping and fucking. There are moments when the two women seem ready for a lesbian affair, and even Pedrillo and Osmin paw each other. Very trendy, perhaps, but not Mozart.

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Gottfried Pilzs endlesslyrevolving settings and his handsome costumes were in their unique ways ingenious and remarkable. But the clever videos of fettFilm (Momme Hinrichs and Torge Mller) were something else entirely. At one point, as the Bride and Groom are settling into their new homeshown on stage, but also seen in videopainters appear with paint-rollers on long poles. They proceed to paint the upstage walls between the three sets of tall windows, which already are revealing video-views of Baroque architecture through their panes, and, with each stroke of the rollers, videos provide the streaks of new paint! They were so imaginatively conceived and so skillfully created that they make most of the video art shown at MoMA and the Whitney Museum seem crude, amateurish, and pretentious. MUNICH FESTIVAL 2006: Old and New Always on View Mozart is never neglected at the Munich Festival, nor is Richard Wagner or local boy Richard Strauss. But under the recently-ended Intendancy of Sir Peter Jonas, George F. Handel has enjoyed a trendy revival that might have astonished him. As a departing gift, Sir Peter made sure that his Intendancy would not soon be forgotten. Just as he Herheim has deeply reenvisioned Die Entfhrung aus dem Serail. had given masterworks of Handel, Photo: courtesy Salzburg Festival Monteverdi, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini Schauspielhannover on 6 May 2006. The title canentirely new looks, he also encouraged novel expernot be literally translated into English without some iments among musicians and artists. loss of its special relevance to users of German cell phones. If you wish your phone to remain on, but Gewhltes Profil: LautlosAvant-garde Dj Vu not with a ringing-tone, you select the mode that guarantees silence: lautlos. Ruedi Husermann was commissioned to In the event, what was shown as a Munich create the music-theatre novelty, Gewhltes Profil: premiere on stage at the Residenz looked rather like Lautlos for Jonas final festival season. But the similar mixed-up music and theatre experiments praise or blame was to be shared, as this was a comade at New Yorks La MaMa ETC forty years ago production of the Bavarian State Opera and by Tom OHorgan. The major differences were that Bavarias State Theatre, the Residenz. Hannovers Profil was being introduced as an innovation four militantly innovative Schauspiel and the Stuttgart decades too late, and that it was mounted with all Opera were also enlisted in this curious project, prothe state-of-the-art technical resources and paid proposed as a kind of revolutionary form of Musicfessionals that two of Europes most prestigious and Theatre. The resulting production premiered at heavily-subsidized state theatres could muster.

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Husermann was credited with both composition and direction. His artistic forces included no less than six actors, plus a string-quartet and two Soundspezialisten. As multimedia productions have become increasingly trendy in Germany, there was also a videographer to record portions of the performance in action that were then dimly projected near the conclusion of the event. The musicians and eventually, the entire castplayed not only the traditional instruments, but also on drums and even oil-drums, coming all together in a sort of grand circus parade near the close of this intermissionless experiment in creating a new kind of MusikTheater-Welt. The musicians, seated on raised, rolling platforms, were now and then moved about the space, to very little effect. A kind of house was constructed of sheets of white paper suspended from overhead wires, and doors and windows were cut at will in these panels with a sharp knife. A sharp knife would also have helped pare down the two hours of onstage fun and games. Most of what occurred on stage, however, seemed improvised, though it was not quite clear whether the performance had been improvised in Hannover rehearsals and then frozen, or whether every night was a little bit different. As a musical event, it was hardly memorable, although the string quartet was commissioned by the Bayerischen Staatsoper Mnchen. Engelbert Humperdincks Other Fairytale: Knigskinder Bavarias beloved fairytale monarch, the extremely eccentric, castle-building King Ludwig II, loved opera so much that he often ordered midnight performances of opera favorites in his court theatre with no other audience save himself. Ludwig had grown rather bulkya shocking contrast to the once young and beautiful Princeso he did not like to show himself in public. Sir Peter Jonas, the retiring Intendant of the Bavarian State Opera, seems, on the contrary, quite tall and thin, especially when he is wearing a long black jacket and trousers. While he may also watch opera rehearsals in King Ludwigs neoclassical Hof-undNationaltheater without an audience in attendance, private showings seem unlikely today. Nonetheless, watching Sir Peter leaning intensely forward to savor every detail of his longed-for revival of Knigskinder reminded one of Ludwigs similar fascination with especially beloved operas in this same

theatre. Long seasons ago, when Jonas was Artistic Director of the English National Opera, he discussed with me his innovative program at the London Coliseum and his dream of reviving Engelbert Humperdincks almost totally forgotten fairytale opera, Knigskinder. This didnt happen in London, so it may well have been that others on the ENO team were not as enthusiastic about the work. In any case, as he had just been invited to succeed Munichs previous Intendant Prof. Wolfgang Sawallisch, Jonas was looking forward to giving old operas new looks, as well as to reviving long-forgotten operas, such as his beloved Knigskinder. At that time, Jonas didnt explain why he loved this opera so much, other than to praise its Wagner-influenced score and its sad story. But watching Sir Peter watching so intently Id like to imagine him as an eager youngster, seeing Knigskinder onstage for the first time and never forgetting it. In the event, the Munich production was strikingly simple, rather like a childs drawing of the world turned upside down. Unlike Humperdincks ever popular Hansel und Gretel, with Knigskinder there is no happy ending. An innocent girlpossibly a princesswho has been turned into a goose-maid by a malignant old witch, not only has to herd the witchs geese but also bake the loaves of magic bread which kill its eaters. One day, an itinerant Prince wanders by and falls instantly in love with the lovely young girl. He offers her his golden crown, and she gives him her crown of flowers. She refuses to come away with him, as she is under the witchs spell. But thanks to a wandering minstrel, the spell is broken and she can make her way to the city of Hellabrunn. Shortly before this, however, two citizens of that ancient city have come to the witch for a prophecy: when will they finally have a king of their own? The witch answers: it will be the first person who comes through the city-gate at high noon. That person is the former goose-girl! But things do not work out well for her, or for the man who would be King of Hellabrunn. They are despised and rejected by the Hellabrunners, driven out and away from civilization to wander in the woods. Eventually, the once-royal childrennow graying, exhausted, and starvingstumble upon the witchs house, where they eagerly devour the hunks of stale bread found inside, and die a slow, sleepy death in each others arms.

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Robert Gambill and Annette Dasch in Humperdincks Knigskinder. Photo: Wilfried Hsl

Andreas Homokis staging of Knigskinder was the essence of child-like simplicity. Set designer Wolfgang Gussmann created a kind of white paper wedgetwo sides of an equilateral-triangle, with the stage-front as its baseon which were drawn upside-down sketches of trees and flowers in bold, primary colors. When there was an outside intrusionor the possibility of escape from the witchs domainthe pure white portions of the two side-walls folded down onto the stage, offering endless vistas into black nothingness. Instead of the infamous gingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel, this Witch lived in a huge white wardrobe, angled centerstage. Later, this immense piece of furniture suggested the city gates of Hellabrunn. The contemporary costumes of Gussmann and Susana Mendoza reinforced the idea that in medieval Germany as well as now, superficial people often reject those who would have been best for them. Every kind of trendy modern garb was confected in various shades of shocking pink, violent violet, and lazy lavender. What was most impressive about the production, however, was not the scenic environment, but how intently the actor/singers inhabited their two-dimensional roles. Annette Dasch was affecting as the Goosemaid, and Robert Gambill was properly stalwart and loving as the Prince. Dagmar

Peckov was rather like a smartly-tailored librarian as the Witch, with Martin Gantner as a raffish Spielmann/Minstrel. There were a number of Wagnerian flourishes in the score that seemed a bit grand for what was shown on stage. In a medieval setting (and with different staging of the masses of chorus), these might have worked to better effect. At the close, however, the final dying duet of the royal children was immensely touching. Coronation Ceremonies in the Prinzregententheater: Amazing Lincoronazione di Poppea The elegant onstage Coronation of Kaiserin Poppea was one of those almost unforgettable events. This was the last performance ever of the brilliantly satiric production mounted by director David Alden and his gifted designers, Paul Steinberg and Buki Shiff. So audience expectations were already highand tickets had been sold out for monthsas spectators stood waiting outside the auditorium of Munichs Jugendstil Prince-Regent Theatre. They waited and waited. Still the doors were not thrown open. Finally, they filed into the arena, only to be greeted by Sir Peter Jonas. He was wearing his long, Chinese-style garb and a long face, as well. He regretfully noted that there were more than eight roles effectively not cast, owing to

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illness. Nonetheless, the opera would go forward, with some switching of roles, some doubling or tripling, and two unexpected debuts! Sir Peter pointed outespecially for those who already knew Aldens productionthat in some cases it would be impossible to know who was playing/singing what, owing to the elaborate make-up and costumes. Thus, Hannah Esther Minutillo appeared as Fortuna, Pallade/Athena, and Venere/Venus; Chen Reiss was both La Virt and Damigella; and Guy de May and Kenneth Roberson performed in several roles. If the Alden teams Rodelinda had been designed with film noir in mind, then Poppea was surely inspired by a mixture of comic book art and high fashion. Some of Buki Shiffs womens outfits were outrageous parodies of the wildest dreams of fashionistas, while others were so smartly elegant that many ladies in the audience could well have coveted them. At the Bavarian State Opera, they do not discard sets and costumes after a production is finished. Paul Steinbergs stunning settings will be dismantled and recycled, but Shiffs costumes ought to be in a permanent collection! Steinbergs minimalist environmentsas with his Rodelindaowe a lot to industrial design: long black faades of empty windows and windowed-doors that can be moved around the stage, and an immense, curving pink wall, featuring a single street lamp. At one point, small metal pegs jut from this wall, forming a kind of stairway to the stars for the ambitious Poppea to climbat some risk, too, as shes wearing a slinky black gown with a long train. Because Steinberg has set elemental but sometimes skewed architectural forms against backgrounds of basic color, the effect is rather like that of some brilliant comic book: Poppea meets Wonderwoman? Poppeas dazzling coronation takes place in a milieu that is entirely composed of black and white checkerboarding, varied in height so there seem to be undulating curves in this background that are not really there. At the moment of Poppeas greatest glory, when she is declared Goddess, as well as Empress, nine crystal chandeliers descend from the flies. There are other moving set pieces, such as an endlessly revolving doora visual metaphor for the constantly shifting powers in the complex plotas well as sofas and chairs rolled around for speed and even comic effect. With two remarkable counter-tenors in the roles of Nerone/Nero and Ottone, it seemed no loss that the day of the castrato is long gone. As Nero,

Jacek Laszczkowski was superb. Not only is he a commanding presence as an actor/singer, but his strongly supported voice soared with great clarity and beauty. This was not a counter-tenor being careful of his vocal folds. Similarly, Axel Khler as Ottone was very strong, even if his role as a wouldbe murderer of his own fickle wife put him in a much weaker position dramatically. Margarita De Arellano, as Poppea, was not only a very elegant, manipulative sexpot dressed in a series of high-fashion gowns, but also a beautiful and imperious personality, singing at the top of her register. Dominique Visse was a total delight at Poppeas old nurse, Arnalta, longing for the respect and privilege she foresaw, should her mistress become Empress of Rome. She played it like a drag role in Buki Shiffs outrageous outfits. Daniela Sindram, as the wronged, abandoned Empress was properly furious and sinister. As Drusilla, who has always loved Ottone, Gemma Bertagnolli was petite but superb: a charming voice and a delightful presence. Her love for Ottone is so strong that she lends him her gown so he can gain entrance to the bedchamber of his intended victim. But how could he kill the impossibly beautiful Poppea, even though she has spurned him? Ottone flees, but the gown is seen and identified as Drusillas, so she is arrested and faces a terrible death. At the Coronation, all is not exactly forgiven, but Ottavia is merely banishedin some peril, but at least not executedand Ottone and Drusilla are sent together into exile. Considering Neros horrifying historical reputation, Monteverds librettist, Giovanni Francisco Busenello, let them all off very lightly. Nonetheless, Neros old tutor and advisor, the famed philosopher Seneca, was ordered to commit suicide by the Emperor. His affecting farewell to his students was wonderfully realized by Sami Luttinen. At the close, the curtain calls were endless and boundlessly enthusiastic, especially for Nero, Poppea, and her stylish old nurse Arnalta. David Alden led the large cast and orchestra, led by conductor Ivor Bolton in repeated surges forward to the footlights. Munichs Handel Orlando Makes Disney WorldVersion Look Old-Fashioned! Curiouslyalthough the Munich ovations for Poppea was boo-freethere was a deafening chorus of boos at the close of the striking new Alden

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production of Handels Orlando, the operas first performance ever in Munich. Often, when a really strange new production of an opera classic or beloved warhorse is too far removed from its original roots, conservative opera lovers go crazy. That has been the rule with Alden stagings in Munich. But over time the audiences come to love his productions and are very sorry when they arelike Poppearetired from the repertory. Considering the prevalent European attitude about American troops occupying Iraq, audiences should soon come to regard this arresting and unsettling Orlando staging as both resonant and foreboding. Based on Ludovico Ariostos poetic fable Orlando Furioso, Handels version of this overused tale presents Orlando as a great warrior who is so hopelessly smitten with the lovely but unattainable Angelica that he is driven mad with jealousy and anger. This doomed love is also keeps him from his day job as a professional killer. With the justly celebrated counter-tenor David Daniels in US Army fatigues and dog-tags, this Orlando could easily be stationed in some Orlando (Florida) army base. Considering the number and variety of space rockets that fill the stage at one point, this is probably a Handelian/Ariostian fantasy of military incompetence at the NASA launchpad in Cape Canaveral. Angelica and Medoro, in Buki Shiffs flowing black desert-garb, are desperately in love. So much so that Orlando, driven mad, slays them, as he thinks. Fortunately, they only seem dead, so they can rise up and rejoice in Orlandos grief-stricken return to sanity and to his duties as a soldier. Rosemary Joshua was a physically and vocally enchanting, if distant, Angelica, with Beth Clayton as a very butch Medoro. As Dorinda, helplessly in love with the unresponding Medoro, Olga Pasichnyk was touching, but occasionally amusing in her dither. Alastair Miles played Zoroastro as an older civilian bureaucrat, concerned about Orlandos unhinged AWOL exploits and eager to have him back in the trenches. Set designer Paul Steinberg created some boldly colored set pieces that could be shifted around to create a minimalist sense of space and movement. One set of orange wall-sections, lined with horizontal tubes, lit up, the long pipes glowing with bright orange light. Ivor Bolton conducted with his customary verve and what seemed an intense involvement with the visual relevance of the staging. He also insisted on having his full orches-

tra on stage for its own curtain-call. Awet Terterjans Das Beben: A Metaphoric Earthquake at Grtnerplatz Theatre In 1647, a catastrophic earthquake destroyed Santiago, Chile, killing hundreds of thousands. This memorable Erdbeben seized the imagination of the German playwright Heinrich von Kleist generations after the disaster, just as the later Lisbon earthquake provided an important scene for Voltaires Candide, later set to music by Leonard Bernstein. While the Lisbon quake was only one disaster in a long, picaresque trail of horrific events in the satiric Candide, von Kleist made the destruction of Santiago central to his Romeo and Julietstyle tragedy. But his use of the quake was anything but satiric. His tale focused on two doomed lovers, Jeronimo Rugera, a teacher for the only daughter of the powerful Don Henrico Asteron, the lovely young Donna Josephe. As soon as the proud old Don discovered their affection, he banished Jeronimo and confined his shamed daughter in a convent. Despite this, the lovers were able to have a secret tryst in the cloister garden. Soon their consummated but ultimately forbidden love was discovered, and they were arrested. Public gossip and moral outrage was so virulent that something stringent had to be done. Jeronimo was imprisoned and condemned to be executed, and Josephe was initially ordered to be burned at the stake, so great was the shame she had brought upon her family and the Holy Sisters. This sentence was softened, to a mere beheading! Before the sentences could be carried out, however, the great earthquake struck. They were both miraculously freed from their confinements and reunited. This should have been a happy ending, but unfortunately, enough decent, god-fearing citizens of Santiago survived to capture them again and see them executed. In Bernsteins Candide, the holiday atmosphere of such public spectacles was satirically evoked in the song What a lovely day/For an autoda-f! Von Kleist also emphasized the excitement and delight the surviving Santiagans experienced in seeing the wicked girl so severely punished. Some thought that the quake was a judgment from god for the lovers appalling sin. When the SovietArmenian composer, Avet Terterian, decided to adapt von Kleists tale as an opera, however, he avoided the satiric and superficial, opting instead

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for a minimalist tragedy. His opera is Beben, and it had its premiere in 2003 in Munich at the Grtnerplatz-Theater. Performances of Beben at the Grtnerplatz have to run en suite, as the theatre cannot be changed every other night as is customary in repertory. The entirety of the orchestra seating is covered over with a deck that meets the edge of the stage. On this deck are four dazzling white, rectangular raised platforms. These are surrounded by varied sections of the orchestra, with four huge drums set at its four corners. One of the platforms is flanked by two rows of maraca players, with a shrill pipe or two. Violins and other strings are marshaled into the curve of the auditorium. Woodwinds and brass are on the stage, backed by tiered seating, with a first row of chorus men in dark suits. Other members of the chorusmainly womenare seated in the boxes and the front sections of the royal circle, where they can furiously thump their disapproval of the despised lovers with their staffs and canes. But Terterians libretto is nothing like those of traditional operatic tragedies. It is, in fact, very simple, with very few words, to be piercingly sung by the lovers, identified only as He and She.

Each enters the arena and mounts a platform, right or left. Their movements, like those of other elemental figures and the chorus, are slow, even ritualistic. In prison, in preparation for her beheading, She has her long hair slowly, silently shorn, strand by strand, by a grim matron. On the two central platforms, a male dancer (Paul Lorenger), donning a enormous bobble-head mask of JFK, mimes various attitudes of the vicious Santiago citizens. At one point, he revolves endlessly until he collapses. After the quake, the two platforms bearing the surviving lovers move toward the center so they can be reunited. The two other platforms join them, making a glowing white cross on which they will be metaphorically crucified. Cornelia Horak and Wolfgang Schwaninger were superb as She and He. Terterian requires them to achieve very high sustained notes, before swooping low, often sounding more like vocalizations than words of the libretto. The strings provide an endless drone, sometimes twittering, under the swishing rain of the maracas, with occasional illuminations from the woodwinds and brass. The big moments come with the thunder of the drums. The set was designed by Christian Schmidt,

An upstanding Santiago citizen accuses the young lovers who survive Das Beben. Photo: Ida Zenna

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who also created the sober costumes, and the action and mime were staged by Claus Guth. Obviously, none of this would have worked so dramatically had not the Grtnerplatzs GMD Ekkehard Klemm rehearsed and conducted Beben so thoughtfully. At the Kammerspiele: Schndet Eure Neoliberal Biographien While serious Americans, concerned about the Constitution-eroding policies of the Bush administration, worry about the neocons and the havoc they have wrought, in Germany, apparently, the enemy is the neoliberal! Program-notespages and pages of themstrive to make clear that Ren Pollesch, the creator of Schndet Eure Neoliberal Biographien, is not really focusing on the neoliberal biggies, but instead on those unfortunates in the underclasses, who suffer globally from their policies of Globalisierung. Nein, wir reden hier nicht von den neoliberalen Biographien der jetsettenden Global-Player, von hochbewerteter Flexibilitt und Mobilitt. Sondern von deiner, du Nutte der gestrkten Eigenverantwortung! If the only German word you knew was Scheisse, you would already have understood about a quarter of the various texts, in which capitalism, globalization, and other political and social evils were denounced as shit or shitty. Other words that easily passed the language barrier were Guantanamo, Katrina, and New Orleans. In case anyone had missed the point, a sign labeled NEW ORLEANS was prominently displayed, as the

cast of four played jazz on air guitars or strummed long, plastic water bottles. The audience was strewn around the performance space, which was in turn strewn with oriental rugs. This made it easy for spectators to depart, which some did after hearing and seeing enough innovation. Only lasting an hour and fifteen minutes, the event seemed much longer. It began with videos of the four players romping on some beds concealed behind hanging sheets and mugging into the video camera. Two large screens showed the audience what was hidden from them. They also spoke and ranted into a microphone to which they seemed to be administering fellatio. The manner of communicating all of Polleschs texts was to speak them rapidly, then suddenly shift into a loud and furious outburst of words, and shift back into normal speech. Was this a parody of Stadt-Theater acting? When the four players finally appeared, they cavorted about the space, seating themselves on large foam dice, on which they occasionally bounced, while ranting about the shitty state of society. The two men put saddles on their dice: one was a Western saddle, the other an English saddle. Bush and Blair? A prompter, holding the manuscript of the text, was part of the ensemble. And why not? In the Fahrstuhl, after the performance, I noted to two stocky, black-clad Germans thatfor these performers and their director, at leasteverything seemed to be Scheisse. Was this all about Bush? No. Its all about YOU!

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The 2006 Berlin Theatertreffen

Marvin Carlson Macbeth This years Theatertreffen in Berlin, a gathering of the outstanding productions of the previous season from throughout German-speaking Europe, opened with a stunning production of Macbeth. This interpretation has aroused considerable controversy in the German press, but I found it more powerful and original than any previous production of this challenging play I have ever seen. The play was directed by Jrgen Gosch, who has been working in major theatres since the early 1970s, but was overshadowed first by Stein, Zadek, Peymann, and Grber, then by Castorf and the Volksbhne dramatists of the 1990s. In the new century, however, he has finally emerged into major recognition, being chosen Director of the Year in 2004 for his production of Gorkis Summerfolk in Dsseldorf, invited to the 2005 Theatertreffen with his Deutsches Theater production of Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and in 2006 awarded with two out of the ten slots in this competition. In the late 1990s this was the sort of recognition given to Frank Castorf, whose star seems to have faded, without a single invitation to the Theatertreffen now for the past three years. Goschs Macbeth was produced at Dsseldorf, where Gosch now frequently works, and immediately created a considerable scandal. Gosch has taken to heart the elemental qualities of the play and his staging is literally awash in bodily fluids from beginning to end. The cast is composed of seven men, who play all the roles with a smoothness of doubling that is quite astonishing. The setting, by Johannes Schtz, is extremely simple: an open stage with black walls, a set of four wooden tables and seven red plastic chairs. After a brief opening sequence showing the witches riding upon the backs of the other four characters, we go to the bleeding sergeant scene, which immediately establishes a major visual image of the production. The other actors seize, thrown down, and strip the actor who is to play this role, and then from bottles of red liquid (a recurring property) they cover him with

Thomas Dannemann, in Jrgen Goschs visceral Macbeth. Photo: Sonja Rothweiler

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blood, so thickly that he slips in pools of it as he reports to Duncan. Nudity abounds throughout the evening, as in this scene when the bloody nude soldier confronts Duncan, nude but for his crown, seated in a red chair atop one of the tables. Subsequently, as each of the soldiers appears, they will first pour a bottle of this same liquid over their heads. For the witch scenes Gosch has developed Banquos line that they are of the earths bubbles, and surely no more earthy witches have ever been seen. The three actors, all nude but with their genitals tucked between their legs to make them appear more feminine, squat side by side on the tables facing the audience and relieving themselves as they speak. Behind them other actors pour out bottles of water as if the witches were urinating, and then thick blobs of brown material, all of which adds to the blood with which the floor is already awash. The evening lasts two hours and forty-five minutes without intermission, and with a steady build-up of such material on the floor so that by the end, the ability of the actors to remain upright is quite astonishing. The other major witches scene, around the caldron, elaborates on these images. The caldron itself is created by turning the tables on their ends and arranging them in a connected circle with legs pointing out at the audience. Inside the space thus created the witches stand facing the audience, arms and hands resting on the tables, and with groaning and farting, clearly provide from their own excrements the stock of the brew they are creating. The visceral immediacy created by the nudity and bodily fluids is increased by the intimacy of actors and audience. The houselights never dim and the actors never go offstage. When they are not literally on stage, they jump down into the first row of seats and wait their for their next entrance, their fluidsmeared bodies just inches away from the first row of spectators behind them. Although all the actors play multiple roles, no characters are played by more than one actor, and so certain bodies become soon associated with particular roles. Thomas Dannemann is an intense, brooding Macbeth. His quiet delivery of Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow is stunning, as he sits at a table, nude, smoking a cigarette (what few costumes and props are used are modern) and casually flicking the ashes into the crude paper crown on the table before him. Ernst Sttzer presents an authoritative Duncan (even when wearing nothing but his beard and his crown), but also

appears as one of the witches and as an intense and suffering Macduff. One of the most memorable figures in this excellent cast is Devid Striesow, who plays Lady Macbeth. Having a large, muscular, bare-chested man in half-gown and black wig play this very masculine character creates a fascinating gender tension, most notably in the occasional sexual scenes between the Macbeths, when the passionate embraces soon dislodge the unconvincing wig, and in the sleepwalking scene, another nude sequence in which for the first time Lady Macbeth appears without the simple covering gown, but, unlike the witches, makes no attempt to hide her sexual organs. Almost every scene is conceived with such powerful visual imagery. When Banquos ghost, for example, appears, he prepares for his entrance by standing downstage center and dumping a sack of flour over his blood-dripping nude body, creating a cloud of dust that engulfs the first few rows of spectators. His subsequent appearance at the table, caked with white and red material, is as shocking as one could wish. Clearly violent images of this kind dominate the production, as they do the original text, but there are also sequences of striking visual beauty, perhaps the most stunning of which is the first appearance of Birnam Wood. All seven of the actors leave the stage and exit from a downstage auditorium door out into the lobby, returning each bearing a young tree in full leaf some sixteen to twenty feet high. They then arrange themselves on stage, seven anonymous nude bodies each holding a tree and for two or three moments simply wave the trees gently or occasionally give them a shake as if a bird or squirrel might be alighting, making occasional totally authentic bird calls and even the tapping of a woodpecker. The effect is quite Edenic, and all the more beautiful and moving amidst the carnage than surrounds it. When the wordless scene ended, the audience burst into prolonged and welldeserved applause. Dunkle lockenede Welt The second offering made a strong contrast to this visceral Macbeth; a very cool, controlled and elegant production of a new Austrian work, Dunkle lockende Welt by Hndl Klaus, was written in 1969 but only staged this year by Sebastian Nbling at the Munich Kammerspiele. In fact, practically the only thing the two productions had in common was a minimalist settingbare walls with tables and

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Jochen Noch and Weibke Puls in Dunkel lockende Welt. Photo: Arno Declair

chairs for the Macbeth, bare walls with a single chair in a pool of light for Welt. This said, however, the two settings still clearly reflected the very different tonalities of these productions. The walls in Macbeth were dark and rough, apparently the walls of the stage-house itself. The backdrop for Welt was an elegant curved cyclorama of polished wooden panels, mounted, we soon discover, so that they can slide apart and reveal various openings upstage. On a dark band that runs across the stage beneath them is written a mysterious quotation from Marcel Duchamp: Ce sont toujours les Autres qui meurent (It is always the Others who die). The furnishings in Macbeth are rough and utilitarian, the single chair in Welt is an stylish, leather-covered one, coolly elegant in its own pool of light (the costumes and setting are by Muriel Gerstner, lighting by Max Keller). The story is told in three acts, each built of a single two-person encounter. The famous surgeon Corinna Schneider (Wiebke Puls) in the first scene turns her apartment over to a house-sitter, Joachim Hugschmeid (Jochen Noch) so that she can accompany a friend on a mysterious trip to Peru. In the second scene, however, she has not left, but carries on a mysterious conversation with her mother Methild (Gundi Ellert), who is apparently engaged in a complex research project involving photosynthesis. The third act brings together the mother and

the house-sitter, in a conversation that suggests that both of them are aware of dark secrets, possibly including murder, that this apartment conceals. As the title (Dark tempting world) suggests, there is little that is clear in this triangular study of neurotic obsessions, extravagant verbal flights, and constant hints of unrevealed mysteries. The critics invoked the names of Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Jacques Tati (the latter apparently because of the very impressive and amusing Tatilike physical deportment of Noch in the opening act) and spoke of the interesting blend of high-style boulevard comedy and dark thriller. Frankly, I thought only Noch offered a really impressive, if highly mannered creation, while Puls was only adequate and Ellert quite missing the style of the others. As for Lynch and Hitchcock, both of whom I greatly admire, I could find little of either their style or imagination in this highly mannered but quite unfocussed text. Mere obfuscation does not create mystery, nor does mannered presentation create high style. Ivanov Dimiter Gotscheff is a director who, like Jrgen Gosch, has only emerged as a major figure in his later years. His career dates back to the 1960s, when he worked with Benno Besson and Heiner

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Mller at Berlins Deutsches Theater and Volksbhne, to both of which he has returned in triumph in recent years. Chekhovs Ivanov this year was his second invitation to the Theatertreffen, the first being Koltes Struggle of the Black Man and the Dog in 2004 [see WES 16.1 and 16.3]. Both productions received powerful and original minimalist stagings, thanks to the distinctive designs of Katrin Brack, who works regularly with this director. In both productions the audience enters to see a completely empty stage, open to a full and distant cyclorama. In Struggle this vast space was filled with constantly showering bits of bright confetti. In Ivanov it is filled with constantly swirling clouds of smoke, which from time to time thin to reveal larger groups of characters, but for the most part form a dense barrier not far upstage from which characters mysteriously appear and disappear. Nothing of the traditional apparatus of Chekovian production is presentno tables, chairs, doors, windows, rugs or samovarsonly the bodies of the actors in largely casual contemporary dress (costumes by Katrin Lea Tag). The performance begins with Ivanov emerging from a trap far up center, right against the cyclorama, and slowly walking downstage, signaling the start of the music which runs beneath much of the productionobsessive notes, both live and digital, by Sir Henry, and variations on the darkly appropriate pop song Its Time to Say Goodbye. He also signals the welling up from the stage floor

of the fog that will occupy most of the stage most of the evening, a fitting metaphor for his own muffled emotions and isolation. As the fog rises to fill the stage the rest of the cast comes in from the wings, each doing a solitary dance with an imaginary partner. This arresting sequence will be repeated, with some variation, at the end of the production. In this low-key interpretation, Ivanov does not commit suicide as in Chekhov. Instead he goes slowly back up to the back wall, where he creates, apparently with spray-paint, a larger than life stick figure pointing a gun at its own head, with a dot between the gun and head representing a bullet. Then he goes back down through the trap (his dying wife Anna having preceded him there) and as the fog gradually dissipates, the other characters return to their solitary dances. The production is visually fascinating, but rather cold and abstract, since Finzi plays Ivanov very quietly, suggesting clinical depression, and the other characters provide very little human warmth, tending toward the kind of caricature figures that seem more appropriate to Gorki than to Chekhov. It seems as if the minimalist spirit affected not only the setting but those within it. Even the Doctor (Alexander Simon), usually a sympathetic if somewhat nave character, here seemed rather cold and calculating, almost a conscious seducer in his attraction to Ivanovs dying wife (Almut Zilcher). The Lebedov family were all essentially caricatures, and

Gotscheff presents a striking, if abstract, interpretation of Ivanov. Photo: Thomas Aurin

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their daughter, Sascha (Birgit Minichmayr) was so vocally and physically odd that she seemed quite unbalanced. Perhaps all this was to suggest the unappealing world seen through Ivanovs eyes, but it resulted in a rather unnuanced performance from most actors. Only Borkin, who is already close to caricature in Chekov, seemed to profit from this approach, due in no small measure to the considerable comic talents of Milan Peschel. As a fresh look at Chekhov, stripped of the usual physical trappings and psychological realism, the production was impressive, but despite the arresting visual effects and occasional striking scenes I found its conscious coldness and abstraction became somewhat repetitive considerably before its two and a half hour running time was complete. Hedda Gabler I looked forward with particular interest to Thomas Ostermeiers Hedda Gabler, since I had much enjoyed his Nora (A Doll House) which appeared in the Theatertreffen of 2004 and subsequently was presented in New York, to great critical acclaim, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Hedda is following a similar trajectory, selected for the Theatertreffen this year and scheduled to appear at BAM this coming fall. This parallel course is particularly interesting because Ostermeier has clearly intended the two productions to complement each other, and while either stands quite successfully alone, those fortunate enough (like the patrons of BAM in New York) to see both will find their experience enriched by the interesting echoes. Most obviously, the two plays are set in much the same social world. Instead of the bourgeois society of late nineteenth-century Norway, both of Ostermeiers productions are flagrantly contemporary, in the world of laptops, digital cameras, and cellphones. His casts are also distinctly younger and wealthier than they are traditionally interpreted. As in Nora, the characters of Hedda Gabler are in their twenties, scarcely post-adolescent, and living in surroundings that exude feelings of contemporary capitalistic display. Jan Pappelbaums setting for Hedda is very different from the lavish, multilevel, sleek but cluttered setting for Nora, but it has the same air of contemporary modish display of wealth. In keeping with the visual minimalism that seemed to be the fashion in this years

Theatertreffen, Pappelbaum created an open, simple setting that suggested in certain ways the opened bungalows developed by Bert Neumann for many of the turn-of-the-century Castorf productions at the Volksbhne. The setting, mounted on a large turntable (like the Neumann settings but also like Ostermeiers Nora), is composed primarily of a long open salon, whose only furnishings are a huge low green sofa and several large vases of white flowers, sitting on the highly polished black floor. Behind the sofa is a wall of glass, looking out onto an empty patio beyond which is darkness. For approximately half of the production, the stage rotates so that the characters can sit on the patio steps with the glass wall behind them. During much of the production it is raining, an effect achieved by having multiple rivulets of water running down inside the glass wall, so that Hedda in particular often appears with this as a background. There is only one solid wall in this open house, running perpendicularly to the long glass wall at its right end, and thus creating a much smaller, more intimate space, with no furnishings whatever, behind it. Actors access this space from the salon by moving in front of the wall, or from the patio through a door. A mirror suspended above the stage shows this area as well as the salon and patio, so that actors can be seen in the mirror even when they are in an area not directly visible to the audienceanother device reminiscent of Neumann, who often has used live video in this same manner. When the stage turns, exterior scenes are projected on the back of this wall, very much like the photographs in Nora. In the final scene, Tesman and Thea begin their work in this more secluded area, pinning up notes and scraps of manuscript on the walls. Then they move into the salon, driving Hedda back into the smaller area out of sight (except dimly in the mirror). Ostermeiers version of her suicide again suggests the final image of his Nora, with the heroine, gun in hand, huddled outside the door as the stage turns. In Hedda we hear the shot, but in a radical reading of the text, no one rushes off stage. Tesmans line Shes shot herself, is played as a somewhat tasteless joke in reponse to the shot, and Bracks famous People dont do such things is given reassuringly, as he remains on the sofa and Tesman and Thea continue sorting notes on the floor. Then the stage begins to turn, revealing Hedda slumped to the floor in the smaller area, her head covered with blood and, behind her, the bloodspattered notes from Eilerts work pinned to the

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Jan Pappelbaums sleek, modern set for Ostermeiers Hedda Gabler. Photo: Arno Declair

wall. The stage continues to turn, revealing alternatively this shocking tableau and the contented unaware activity of the others continuing in the salon. As in the ending to his Nora, Ostermeier confounds tradition while at a deeper level restoring the power of the play for a contemporary audience overly familiar with the original. The ending is perhaps the most striking innovation in this highly impressive production, but it is full of distinctive touches, far too many to report here. The updating somewhat diminished the social tensions of the original, but it adds new power to many sequences, perhaps most strikingly when Hedda does not burn Eilerts manuscript but takes a hammer to his laptop (later Tesman will notice a few metal bits remaining on the polished floor and sweep them frantically under the dominant couch). The cast is excellent, but Katharina Schttler is truly memorable as a kind of Valley Girl Hedda, not so much trapped by her society as bored, neurotic, desperate for thrills but too immature and inhibited to interact productively with others. Lars Eidinger was one of the best Tesmans I have ever seen, foolish of course, was also with an unusual degree of warmth. Here again his immaturity is used to great advantage. Kay Bartholomus Schulzs tormented Lvborg had an almost adolescent intensity which was most effective, and Richter Brachts cool Brack

and Annedore Bauers determined Thea provided effective support for a truly memorable production. The New York audiences that enjoyed Nora last season have another theatrical treat in store for them. Three Atmospheric Studies Generally there is at least one dance-theatre presentation at the Theatertreffen, and this years selection was Three Atmospheric Studies by William Forsythe, which premiered as part of the European Theatre Festival earlier this season. This was one of the first offerings of the newly founded Forsythe Company, created after the closing of the Frankfurt Ballet, which Forsythe had made one of Europes leading dance centers. The new company is much more typical of the way support for dance and theatre is developing in Germany. It is a Public Private Partnership, whose support is shared by two German states and private corporations. Three Atmospheric Studies was inspired, Forsythe has said, by a similarity he felt between two images of suffering separated by half a millennium. The first was Lucas Cranchs painting of the cruxificion, Klage unter den Kreuz (1503), the second a Reuters news photo of 2005 in Iraq showing four soldiers running and carrying a body, with

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burning autos and ruined buildings behind them. somewhat like those of the first act. Wandering Forsythe incorrectly has called these images idenamong them is a kind of tourist guide, pointing out tical in composition, which they in fact are not, but in a matter of fact voice items of interest in what is a part of the ruined building could be seen as having apparently a bomb sitebits of furniture, scattered the shape of a cross and the clouds from the burning possessions, and, most extensively, body parts. cars do appear in the same general part of the image Added onto this already complex mixture of eleas clouds in the Cranach. There is of course a comments, the mother sits impassively in a chair and is mon theme of suffering, which Forsythe conflates as lectured to by the evenings most memorable charseeing Cranachs grieving Mary a symbol of all sufacter, dancer Dana Casperson, lip-synching with a fering mothers whose sons are put to death by the male voice with a Bush-like Texas accent who problind decrees of an unfeeling authority. vides boilerplate justifications for the use of force. The piece is indeed composed of three Most of these are either direct quotes from or close studies, very different in construction, but all built imitations of public pronouncements by Rumsfeld. around the themes of the brutality of war and the Some of the German reviewers identified this figure suffering of its innocent victims, especially those as Condoleezza Rice, rather odd since neither her with some visual ties to the two images. Although physical appearance, nor her accent, nor her lines there is much language in the pieces, the first has suggested Rice, but the mistake was perhaps underonly a single line, spoken at the beginning by a standable in that the clear target of the plays attack woman: My son was arrested. There follows a was the suffering the Bush administration has series of alternating frozen moments and violent brought to the people of Iraq. interactions of groups and individuals, often clearly Sympathetic as I am to this position, I suggesting the struggle of the son and other resisters found the production as a political statement, simto the representatives of power. The second part is plistic and heavy-handed, reminiscent of some of based upon the fruitless efforts of the mother to file the agitprop theatre of the late 1960s. It clearly a complaint about the arrest of her son, her report struck a responsive chord with both German critics filtered through the indifferent efforts of an incomand audiences, however, perhaps partly because the petent bureaucrat who is producing a garbled Arabic loud and layered text, all in English, was surely translation of her words for the official records. As almost impossible for non-native speakers to underthey struggle to communicate, between them a figstand in its entirety. ure representing the son carries out an extended monologue, illustrated by fluid body movements, about perspectives and points of view, analyzing in complex detail the structure of the representative images. The three perspectives continually overlap, so that no single line of discourse is ever really clear for more than a sentence or so. The final section is the most complex, most discursive, and most openly political of the three. A rather crude house-like structure with two doors stands upstage to the right. At one door is the narratorson, lecturing on the two images, with another image, simply of clouds, in a doorway behind him. As he describes figures in the images, dancers representing them appear from the other door and carry The final section of William Forsythes Three Atmospheric Studies. out a series of violent movements
Photo: Dominik Mentzos

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A tight and well-paced Platonov, from the Schauspiel Stuttgart, directed by Karin Henkel. Photo: David Graeter

Platonov Chekovs early play, translated in German as in English with a variety of titles, if played in its entirely runs about seven hours, so cutting it down to a manageable size (just under four hours in this production from the Schauspiel Stuttgart) is a considerable challenge from the outset. Nevertheless, director Karin Henkel and her dramaturg, Kekke Schmidt have produced a workable and well paced production which, thanks to an excellent company, headed by Felix Goeser in the title role, and to a brilliant design by Stefan Mayer, makes a rather long evening go very quickly. Henkel has worked with some of the major names and for some of the leading theatres in Germany and Austria. She began as an assistant in 1994 to George Tabori and Claus Peymann at the Vienna Burgtheater, where in 1996 she presented a highly successful production of Arthur Millers The Crucible. She was then twenty-five, the youngest woman ever to direct at the Burgtheater. Later she worked with Leander Haussmann and Matthias Hartmann at Bochum. She then went on to major theatres in Hamburg, Berlin, Zurich, and elsewhere, directing several major productions in Leipzig between 2001 and 2004 which won her that citys

Caroline Neuber Prize, named for the great eighteenth-century pioneer actress and director. Platonov is her first production in Stuttgart and her first invitation to the Theatertreffen. Like most of the Theatertreffen offerings this year, Platonov featured an essentially empty stage. Like Ivanov it lacked most of the traditional trappings of a Chekovian setting, but it had its own distinctive monumentality. Mayer constructed a large inset cyclorama, a huge wall surrounding the back half of the turntable divided into panels inset with long vertial strips of neon lighting. Characters could enter through doors in this wall, and once onstage had the use of chairs, but little other scenery. Each act featured highly theatrical and non-realistic visual effects, some of them reminiscent of the simple but powerful designs of Katrin Brack. Indeed the shower of multicolored confetti that fell continuously during the second act seemed a direct visual quotation of Bracks much-praised design for Koltes Struggle of the Black Man and the Dog. There seemed to be other visual quotes too. A forest of bare birch trunks recalled Peter Steins Chekovian settings of the 1980s, although here with an ironic edge as one of the actors remarks on their appearance as they float in from the flies. The turntable also was used in self-conscious and highly

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amusing ways. In the first act, as most of the characters carry on conversations in a line of chairs stretching across the stage under the proscenium, one of the fathers sits sleeping in a chair at the edge of the revolving turntable, and so makes a continuing counterpoint of movement, even while asleep, behind the static scene downstage. In the fourth act, Platonov, between his encounters with the various young women, stands in this same spot at the edge of the turntable, muttering amo, amas as he slowly revolves around the stage. Bottles of alcohol of various sizes and shapes ring the stage, and Platonov seizes samples among them as he passes, and creates a most entertaining drunken sequence. As in the traditional clown routine, he wears boots fixed to the floor, which allow him to emphasize his drunken state by leaning toward his female partners at impossible angles as they speak. The Stuttgart theatre assembled a strong cast for this production, but the dominant contributors were Goeser as Platonov, Anja Brglinghaus as the widow Anna Petrovna, and Martin Leutgeb as the doctor Nikolai Ivanovitch. The production comes to a striking conclusion when Platonovs wife Sasha (Anna Windmller), finally driven to cold fury by the actions of her feckless and unfaithful husband, shoots him. She then passes the gun to others of his victimsAnna, Nikolai, Platonovs other female pursuit, Sofia (Silja Bchli), and so onsuggesting the murder by committee in Agatha Christies famous Murder on the Orient Express. The deed completed, Nikolai steps downstage past the body to assure the audience that Platonov shot himself. All then solemnly depart, the last Sasha, who pauses for a final look at the dead man. Allein das Meer Halle has never been among the major theatre centers of Germany, and to the best of my knowledge has also never, until now, been represented at the Theatertreffen. Their production of Paul Binnerts new play Allein das Meer did not convince me that Halle is about to move to a more prominent position. This is the first production of a new experimental theatre just opened in Halle, the Kulturinsel Halle, presumably a small space, since the Berlin version placed both actors and performers on the stage of the Hebbel Theater, the audience numbering about two to three hundred and seated on temporary bleachers. The play was both written and directed by

Paul Binnerts, a director from Holland, and was adapted from a novel by Amos Oz, the second Oz adaptation that Binnerts has staged. Being familiar with Oz as one of the best-known spokesmen of the Israeli left, I was expecting this play, presumably set in todays Israel, to have distinct political overtones, if not a strong political message. Instead I was rather disappointed to find it a rather banal family drama, describing the largely unsuccessful attempts of its characters to lead significant and fulfilling lives. At the center of the play is Albert (Peer-Uwe Teska), who has recently lost his wife Nadia (Danne Hoffman) to cancer; indeed, the play begins with mourners meeting him after the funeral. The struggle of Albert and his adult son Rico (Yves Hinrichs) to come to terms with this loss drives much of the action, and their coping is not very inspired. Rico, in a kind of 1960s retreat, goes off to the Himalayas to find himself, and instead finds a prostitute. She is played by the same actress who plays his dead mother, but now wearing a mans hat. Since this is the only doubling in the show, with a cast of nine, one assumes a Freudian point is being made. Meanwhile Albert is attracted to Dita (Carmen Birk), the girl his son left behind. Lesser characters with similar problems fill out the cast and the action. A somewhat experimental, though hardly revolutionary structure somewhat alleviated the banality of this plot. There was an omniscient narrator (Jrg Lichtenstein), and the story was told with much narration and flashbacks, so that the wife remained as an important character. All of the characters remained on stage throughout, listening with apparent interest to each others stories, and occasionally refreshing themselves with cups of tea from a long table on one side of the stage filled with teacups, pots, and samovars. During the intermission the audience was invited to join the actors for tea, and to discuss their stories with them, but I took advantage of the opportunity to slip away. It all seemed like a not very original variation on some of the story-telling theatre of the 1960s. The actors were earnest, but clearly not in the same league as others in the Theatertreffen from more major cities and institutions. Some Berlin reviewers suggested that the jury wanted to bring in a production representing a smaller theatre instead of the predictable offerings from the large theatre centers, but if so, this comparatively weak selection hardly did much good for the reputation of such smaller organizations.

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Wallenstein One of the best known experimental groups in Germany today is Rimini Protokoll, the name adopted by three young author/directors: Helgard Haug, Daniel Wetzel and Stefan Kaegi. Since 2000 they have been engaged in a wide variety of experiments bringing real material onto the stage and viewing sections of reality outside the theatre in theatrical terms. Their CALL CUTTA in 2005, a mobile phone theatre connected individual audience members by phone with speakers in India who then took them on a narrated remote-control historical tour of a section of Berlin [see WES 17.2]. The year before Hot Spots somewhat similarly theatricalized a walk through tourist areas of Athens, while Brunswick Airport theatricalized an entire building. In Wallenstein for the first time Rimini Protokoll (working this time without Stefan Kaegi) has taken on a traditional dramatic text, the occasion being an invitation to create a work for the Schiller Jubilee Year festivities in Mannheim. Given the commitment of the group to aspects of contemporary social reality and to real-life material, this classic historical drama would seem the most unpromising material imaginable. All the more remarkable, then, is the fact that the Rimini Protokoll Wallenstein was a fascinating evening of theatre, clearly one of the most successful and certainly the most original of the offerings in this years Theatertreffen. The concept of this production is perfectly in line with Rimini Protokolls ongoing interest, but still totally unexpected. Their two-hour adaptation of Schillers huge historical trilogy refers to the original constantly, but obliquely and highly selectively. Only about fifty actual lines of Schiller are given, and most of these as conscious quotations. Among the many slides and film clips projected onto an onstage screen there are a few of what seem to be early nineteenth-century engravings of scenes from the story. The screen also provides the titles of the various sections of the trilogy, establishing approximately where in Schillers story the evenings work is operating. The major connection with Schiller, however, works in a totally different manner. What Rimini Protokoll has done is seek real-life contemporary people, none of them actors, with interesting life histories that Haug and Wetzel see as parallel to the lives of the major characters in Schillers play.

Their interests, dreams, and stories are then woven into a stage collage performed by themselves. So, for example Wallenstein, Schillers betrayed hero, is represented by a real-life politician, Dr. SvenJoachim Otto, a prominent Mannheim conservative who recently lost the support of his own party and subsequently a hotly contested mayoral election, a fall that the production develops in parallel to that of Schillers general. Ralf Kirsten, now a prominent figure in the Thuringen police but with a rich, complex, and contradictory political and personal past within the shifting demands of allegiance of East and West Germany, stands in for the plays other central figure, the similarly conflicted Piccolomini. The disillusioned soldier figures of the play are powerfully represented by two Americans, who speak English throughout, Darnell Stephen Summers and Dave Blalock. Both are Vietnam veterans now actively engaged in anti-war protests. Summers, a musician, delivers a rap denunciation of war that is one of the great moments of the evening, and Blalock is stirring in his story of how the witnessing of atrocities against civilians turned him against the war, of how men in his regiment turned against and at last killed their leader (again an echo of the fall of Wallenstein) and how he eventually went to the Supreme Court to win a case involving flag-burning. (My memories as an American of him and this case gave me a brief experience of the kind of extra-theatrical connections that German audience were clearly making with much of this material.) A real-life astrologer (Esther Potter) stands in for Schillers parallel figure. A woman who runs a kind of dating service for married people arranging affairs (a Partnerschaftsagentur, apparently a not unfamiliar phenomenon in Germany), Rita Mischereit, offers a kind of tongue-in-cheek version of Schillers manipulative Countess Terzky, and so on. There is even a passionate devotee of Schiller, actually an electrician, Friedemann Ganer, whose quotations from his hero provide most of the evenings specific lines from the play. It is difficult to compare this original performance with anything I have seen before. The performers are not professional actors, but most of them have long backgrounds in other kinds of public performance, and they are all relaxed and confident on stage. The closest parallel I can think of is the wonderful interviews of Studs Terkel, who like Haug and Wetzel has a tremendous gift for finding people with fascinating stories to tell and then drawing these stories out of them in a fascinating narra-

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A simple and affecting Der Kick. Photo: Wilfried Bing

tive. That is something of the effect of this evening, although here the stories are ingeniously woven into a theatrical mosaic that not only allows them to illuminate each other but also to continually through unexpected if oblique light on the Schiller narrative that continues to unroll in the background. After many years of theatre going, it is indeed rare that I encounter something that is truly a new approach, and moreover a highly effective and even moving one, but I would have to so describe Rimini Protokolls Wallenstein. Der Kick As an American, I could not avoid seeing Der Kick as a German parallel to our own Laramie Project, although not surprisingly this similarity was not noted by German reviewers, who looked for dramatic parallels to the violent works of Sarah Kane or Franz-Xavier Kroetz or to the documentary theatre of Hochhuth and Weiss. The performance is based, like The Laramie Project, on a recent crime that gained widespread publicity not only because of its savagery, but also because it was seen as representative of a serious disfunction in sections of contemporary German society. On the night of July 12, 2002, in Potzlow, a small East German town about one hundred kilo-

meters northeast of Berlin, two brothers (Marco, 23, and Marcel, 17) and their school-mate, Sebastian (also 17) spent several hours first humiliating, then torturing, and finally killing another classmate, Marius, forcing him to shout I am a Jew, beating and urinating on him, and at last killing him with a stone and leaving his body in a pig sty, where it was not discovered for several months. When at last the matter became public, the Potzlow Murder Case became a major national story, the entire city criminalized as representative of the disappearance of civil society among the youth in modern, perhaps especially East Germany, which still bears (or is seen to bear) deep psychic wounds from the sufferings of the last century. Director Andres Veiel graduated with a degree in psychology and then turned to film making, producing a number of prize-winning documentary films (Black Box BRD in 2001 and Die Speilwtigen in 2004). The Potzlow project apparently started as another such project, but Veiel found that while he was able to conduct many relevant interviews, he was not able to obtain permissions for filming, and so he turned instead, for the first time, to theatre. Out of some 1500 pages of interview material, a forty page script was evolved, performed by two actors (Susanne-Marie Wrage and Markus Leich), who present the words of twenty-one per-

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sonsthe convicted young men, their friends and relatives, and townspeoplemuch the same crosssection of society as was presented by a larger number of actors in The Laramie Project. There is no dialogue, no serious attempt at impersonation. Both actors are dressed in black, with portable microphones, and sit before the audience, suggesting different characters by slight changes in voice, position, or bearing. The stage is as simple, and unconventional, as the presentation. The location is an abandoned warehouse not far from the Volksbhne in the working-class neighborhood, the Prenzlauer Berg. The set is simply an old wooden bench in the foreground and some thirty feet behind it a large oblong box, rather like a railway car viewed from the side, with a window in it that could be lighted up for the figure of the examining official to inhabit during the trial scenes (the costumes and stage are by Julia Kaschilinski). Although Susanne-Marie Wrage and Markus Lerch do not go to great lengths to differentiate the many characters they play, their quiet intensity and the power of the material creates a in the ninety minutes of this production a powerful effect. A part of its effect was in its simplicity, and for that reason I found the examination box, which moved

from time to time up and downstage, rather cumbersome and distracting. At the conclusion, however, the box was rolled away at the actors remained seated downstage in silhouette on their bench, with the cavernous warehouse space open behind them and the only light coming in from floodlights mounted outside and showing through the distant rear windows, a memorable effect, which like the evenings best moments, was achieved by the simplest and most straightforward means. Three Sisters Originally the final production of the Theatertreffen this year was to be the new work by Christoph Marthaler from the Vienna Festwochen, Schutz vor der Zukunft, but scheduling problems prevented it from appearing, and it will instead be a part of the new season-long international festival of theatre in Berlin, appearing there in October. Thus the final production was in fact Chekovs Three Sisters, and, though the absence of the Marthaler was a considerable disappointment to all, there was a strong appropriateness in the fact that this years festival began and ended with productions by Jrgen Gosch, not only because it is an unusual

The Three Sisters represented another success for Jrgen Gosch. Photo: Arno Declair

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honor for a single director to be represented by two productions, but also because these were clearly among the most outstanding offerings of a quite strong festival. Three Sisters, as is typical for Gosch, is staged in a minimalist, but still highly theatrical manner. The striking setting, by Johannes Schtz (who also designed the costumes), is literally an enormous box, its walls and ceiling devoid of decoration or any opening, totally filling the stage of the Festspielhaus, but all of its sides diminishing so that the remote back wall, while still some 15 feet or more high and 20 or more wide, is considerably smaller than the opening toward the audience. The single permanent piece of scenery is a swing, hanging at the very front of the stage far down right. The sole lighting is provided by an enormous box flood light, which provides illumination (and huge shadows of the characters) for the entire stage. At the opening of the evening it is located downstage to our left, in the footlight area, and as the evening passes it moves slowly but imperceptibly across to the stage until at the end it is in the parallel position to the far right (lighting by Heiko Wachs). When the production begins the stage is essentially empty, with all the characters, along with all the minimal properties and furnishings, gathered together far upstage. The sisters begin the play by setting up a row of simple tables extending up the middle of the stage from the footlights to the rear as they give the opening lines. Next they line up simple plastic and aluminum chairs along the two sides of the table and spread out a long tablecloth. Gradually they and Anfisa will set this table and the entire action of the first two acts will take place around it, most intimate two-person scenes played by characters seated at the end closest to the audience. Despite a total difference in tone, Three Sisters contains some striking parallels to Goschs Macbeth, and one is this use of basic tables and chairs. The Sisters chairs are more numerous and in somewhat better shape, but they are essentially the same plastic and aluminum items. The costuming, like these simple pieces, is essentially modern and very basic, dark suits for the most part for the men and the three sisters in simple sweaters or T-shirts and jeans. Those who do not follow this general code accordingly stand outNatalia (Isabella Menke) in her rather garish red dress with green sash in the first act, and Andrei (Christoph Franken) in T-shirt, tennis shoes and casual pants worn so low

that his more than ample belly is usually exposed. It is rather difficult to see why Natalia, who is much more attractive and engaging in this production than I have normally seen her, is at all attracted to the physically highly unappealing Andrei, but their scene together at the end of the first act, played on and around the downstage swing, is highly erotic and totally convincing in its ardor. The plays other love affairs are one of the weaker parts of the production, primarily because on the whole the women are much more interesting and effective than the men. All three sisters (Picco von Groote as Irina, Katharina Lorenz as Masha and Oda Thormeyer as Olga) are excellent both alone and together. All, even Olga, seem quite youthful (as does most of the cast) and winning. Fabian Gerhardt creates a properly distasteful Solyony and Peter Knaak handles the foolish, uxorious Kulygin with great success. Unhappily the more central male characters, Christian Erdmann as Tusenbach and Matthias Neukirch as Vershinin are consistently quite bland, provided little help for their female partners. The most effective sequence between Vershinin and Masha is when, trying not to disturb those around them, they clandestinely express their feelings for each other by the quiet singing of a love scene from Tschaikovskys Eugene Onegin, but this is clearly an idea not of the actors but of the director, who provides in the background frequent familiar Russian melodies, sung or played on the guitar or piano. Roland Renner is adequate as Chebutkin, with his eternal newpaper and cigarette dangling from his lip (almost all the characters smoke for most of the evening), but he is much too young and focused for this character (unhappily his dismissive final line is cut). Special mention must be made of the wonderful servants Sibylle Brunner as Anfisa and Klaus-Peter Haase as Ferapont, both so ancient as to be almost antediluvian, but pursuing their tasks with zombie-like determination despite their lack of almost any of their strength or faculties. The sight of the two of them stomping together up or down stage to carry out some such perceived duty leaves a lasting image of enormous poignancy and comedy. Because the stage lacks any openings, the actors for most of the evening retreat to the far upstage to leave the action, but, somewhat oddly, in the last two acts they go off-stage by leaving the stage and sitting in the first row of the auditorium. Inevitably one is reminded of the use of this same

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device in Goschs Macbeth, but there it was established from the beginning and seemed an integral part of the staging concept. Here it seemed more arbitrary, almost like a conscious self-quotation. Choice such as these, and a somewhat uneven cast, made this production, despite many

brilliant moments, less successful as a whole than the Macbeth, but it was nevertheless a highly innovative and memorable interpretation of a major classic, and certainly worthy of inclusion in this prestigious festival.

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Report from Munich, Summer 2006

Steve Earnest Attendance at the twelfth symposium of the International Brecht Society, Brecht und der Tod, allowed me to view several theatre productions in the nearby city of Munich. With an abundance of Italianate and Medieval architecture and a number of strong theater companies, the theatre scene in Munich is easily as active as that in other parts of Germany, and the healthy tourist base often makes it difficult to obtain seating during the summer months. This report will cover performances at the Kammerspiele Mnchen, the Bayerische Staatstheater and the lesser known but equally enjoyable Staatstheater am Grtnerplatz during midJuly 2006. Located near the Nationaltheater in the fashionable Maximillian Street district, the Bayerische Staatstheater featured what appeared to be an interesting production of Ibsens The Master Builder which, unfortunately, was not showing during my stay. However, I was able to witness a unique production entitled Gewhltes Profil: Lautlos, a music theatre work created by Ruedi Husermann and co-produced by the Bayerische Staatsoper, Schauspiel Hannover and the Staatsoper Stuttgart [see related report in this issue]. The title of the work is related to ring options on a cellular phonein this case, silence (lautlos = silent ring tone). The work was conceptualized by the Swiss director Husermann as an exploration of the world through sound, light and shadows. Lacking a plot other than references to certain archetypal situations, the work was defined by a musical text presented by different groupings of musicians who communicated to each other and to the audience through sound and rhythm. From the moment I arrived inside the auditorium the work had begun; a string quartet was rehearsing while a group of technicians experimented with lighting instruments and cloth backdrops. The work evolved into a collage of movement, musical ensembles, physical alterations of the performance space, and numerous light changes and effects. According to Husermanns program notes: the music developed a spatial dimension in this work; because the music was objectified, the staging corresponded to the silence of the world of shadows. Gewhltes Profil: Lautlos featured a cast of over thirty, all of whom played at least one instrument, sang choral harmony and executed simple choreography and staging while doing so. The

Gewhltes Profil: Lautlos. Photo: Wilfried Hsl

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Lars-Ole Walburg updates The Cherry Orchard for the Munich Kammerspiele. Photo: Andreas Pohlmann

series of tableaux was visually interesting and flowed seamlessly along with the scenic changes throughout the production. As noted by Husermann, the work was not intended to have a linear meaning but sought to exist inside the spectators mindas if one could close ones eyes for part of the performance and still receive the same information. In the past five years the Kammerspiele Mnchen has firmly established itself as one of Germanys premiere ensembles, having consistently placed one or more productions in the annual Berliner Theatertreffen. For example, the 2006 Theatertreffen featured Dunkel Lockende Welt (Dark Tempting World) [see report on the Theatertreffen elsewhere in this issue], while the 2005 festival included an unprecedented triumvirate of works by a single company: Paul Claudels Break of Noon, a dramatization of Michael Houellebecqs Elementarteilchen (The Elementary Particles), and the winner of the 2005 Theatertreffen, Friedrich Hebbels Die Nibelungen [see WES 17.3]. The summer 2006 repertory consisted of a number of standard works of world drama; I was able to see excellent productions of Chekovs The Cherry Orchard as well as an adaptation of Schillers The Robbers, entitled Die Rauber Nach Schiller. Traditionally a bastion of stage realism, The Cherry Orchard is a work that begs for visionary staging, unique visual construction and metaphoric treatment. For this production, adapted by former DDR writer Thomas Brasch, director Lars-Ole Walburg chose to shift the location to con-

temporary post Deutschmark Germany and the radical changes in German society brought about by the loss of jobs, a failing social security system and a rapidly changing economy. Robert Schweers minimalist design approach substituted words and recognizable icons of contemporary society for literal locations; for example, in the opening scene the estate was signified by a giant wooden (presumably cherry) wall upstage with the word Deutschland in bold letters on the wall. The stage floor was covered with artificial grass where most of the action took place, thus creating a sense of alienation for the characters, who had seemingly been relegated outside the estate from the beginning of the plays action. The characters were portrayed as upper middle class landed aristocratic types: buffoons who were incapable of successfully surviving in the new economy. Burdened by ill-fitting designer clothing and new technologies such as cell phones and iPods, they illustrated the downfalls of trendiness and class separation. The final scene was particularly entertaining as the entire family attempted to cram themselves into a late-model Mercedes sedan as they left the estate. Gayev, played to perfection by the agile Stephan Bissmeier, was the last to attempt entry into the overfull sedan and was forced to stuff himself into the trunk. Die Ruber Nach Schiller was conceived and directed by Christiane Pohle and, like The Cherry Orchard, was revised to provide commentary on contemporary German society. Pohles Die Rauber was set during the rise of Nazism in Germany and the story was rearranged to comment on the split in the Moor family caused by Nazi Party

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affiliations. In this version the cast was reduced to only five members and an upstage chorus, visible only through two large doors, in a mensa, or eating hall. Throughout Die Ruber German nationalist hymns were taught to the offstage chorus, who rehearsed and sang the works with great energy and pride, signifying the growing Nazi movement in Germany. The onstage action was reduced to a series of short scenes and monologues between Karl and Franz Moor, Spiegelberg (a Nazi informant), and Father Moor. In this story Karl and later Father Moor were slowly broken down by the outside world and became members of the Nazi party while Franz was the lone holdout, causing a severance of the family. Nazism was signified through icons of contemporary society such as Nike shoes, CocaCola, and designer clothing. Die Rauber was not a period specific commentary on the rise of Nazism as much as it used Nazism as a reference point for societal mutations and commented on the fact that individuals are often swept up in popular movements before they realize the negative ramifications of their participation. Another of Munichs state-supported theaters is the Staatstheater am Grtnerplatz, just a few kilometers south of the city center. The ornate court theater, built in 1748, features a beautiful orchestra and box configuration and provides an intimate evening in the theater for virtually all spectators. During July 2006 the company presented Das Beben, an adaptation of Kleists short story Das Erdbeben in Chile (The Earthquake in Chile) adapted and composed by the late Awet Terterjan. Kleists short story details the events surrounding the horrific earthquake in Santiago in 1647, and centers around Jeronimo and Josephe, an unwed couple who have a child and are ostracized by the community. Condemned to death for her actions, Josephe is about to be hanged when the earthquake occurs, freeing her and killing all those who were intending her to be executed. The couple attempts to reemerge in society a few weeks later but is discovered at church and brutally murdered by the townspeople in a pious attack on their sinful lives. In the end, only the child is saved and goes to live with a prominent Santiago family. For Das Beben, the interior of the Theater am Grtnerplatz was reconfigured so that the playing area for the production was actually the orchestra seating section (with chairs removed) and stadium seating was erected on the stage proper, thus creating an arena staging configuration. In the cen-

tral staging section a series of four platforms, placed roughly in the shape of a cross (later in Act Two it was clearly shaped like a cross), was surrounded by a sixty-five piece orchestra. Several smaller choral groupings were placed throughout the auditorium, allowing for a multi-dimensional sound structure throughout the work; the large orchestra and choral groups were expertly conducted by Ekkehard Klemm. The principal actors characters were limited to three, listed only as Sie (representing Josephe), Er (representing Jeronimo) and Ausrufer, or town crier. The smaller choral groupings eventually made it onto the primary staging area for the confrontational scene in the church; at that point they represented the mass of townspeople who accused and later destroyed the young couple. Given the simple story, operatic structure and minimalist composition, the real power of Das Beben was due to three elements: the intermingling of the work with the audience, the seemingly endless levels of choral and orchestral harmony and in the tremendous build of the work, culminating in the death of Josephe and Jeronimo. Both Sie, played by Cornelia Horak, and

The reconfigured Theater am Grtnerplatz for Das Beben. Photo: Ida Zenna

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Er, played by Wolfgang Schwaniger, were tremendous singers, but the form of the work did not provide them with a great forum through which they could shine as individuals. Instead, their performances were virtually usurped by the totality of the experience inside the Theater am Grtnerplatz certainly a production to remember. On a final note, I was able to spend an afternoon with Dr. Thomas Siedhoff, Rektor of the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding and tour the illustrious Prinzregententheater in northeastern Munich. One of the leading theaters of

the National Socialist regime in Germany, the theatre is now home to the music theatre, opera and acting programs of the recently founded Theaterakademie, which has quickly become one of Germanys most attractive programs. With a number of well equipped studios, office spaces and extraordinary production capabilities, the Prinzregententheater is an ideal location to house an institute for theatre training, and lends evidence to the claim that German theatre training institutions are among the worlds finest.

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Summer 2006 in Bayreuth, Bregenz, and Edinburgh

Glenn Loney Bayreuth For obvious reasons, Richard Wagners Bayreuth Festival completely ignored Mozarts 250th Birthday. And neither the Bregenz Festival nor the Edinburgh Festivalboth founded in 1946were especially celebrating the Salzburg Wunderkind, being more interested in their own 60th Anniversaries. A New Ring The current Ring is set to run for four more seasons, closing in 2010. After that, there will be a two-year hiatus. After the sensational and suggestive previous Bayreuth Ringstaged by the Salzburg Festivals new Intendant, Jrgen Flimm the initial announcement of the new Bayreuth Ring director came as a surprise, and as a disappointment to those in the know: it was to be the eccentric Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. In the event, last summer he decided he really couldnt do the job and jumped ship. This meant an entire year of directorial and design preparation had been lost. In addition to Julie Taymor, whose name had been mentioned in the press as a possible last-minute replacement, there was talk of an invitation to filmmaker Stephen Spielberg. Perhaps in desperation, Wolfgang Wagner invited the playwright Tancred Dorst to take over the directorial tasks, even with so little planning, construction, and rehearsal time remaining. Even before the Festival premiere of the new Dorst Ring, however, it was apparent that the production would not be quite ready. Not only was Dorst not widely known as a gifted opera director although he has had some directorial creditsbut it was reported that he and Christian Thielemann, the Ring conductor, were not in agreement about who the characters really were and what they represented. Nonetheless, Dorst, who always works with his partner, Ursula Ehler, invoked the concept of Bayreuth as a Wagner Workshop. This idea of Wolfgang Wagners has proved its value in the past, especially with the Chereau Ring. If the physical production of any Bayreuth Wagner staging is not completely constructed or in working order in the second season, these problems can be solved and the production improved. Even into the third, fourth, and fifth seasons. Thus, Wagner-lovers are anxiously waiting to see what will happen to the Dorst Ring next summer. At the top of the Official Bayreuth Festival Tancred Dorst Biografie, the first entry is for 1925, when Dorst was born. So he will be 81 by Christmas, looking forward to a second season of working on his Ring in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Or perhaps not looking forward, as he has to deal with the 88-year-old grandson of Richard, the stillfeisty Wolfgang Wagner. In the midst of the recent festival season, both Dorst and his Dramaturg Norbert Abels complained to the press that he had not had enough time to realize all that he had planned. Only some 70 or 80 percent of his vision had been made manifest on stage. To skeptical criticsand to the Festival managementthis sounded very much like looking for excuses for the half-hearted results on view. Wolfgang Wagner rejected Dorsts claims, noting that Dorst had had the same rehearsal time as other directors. But one must remember that Dorst was virtually a last-minute replacement for von Trier, and that he was hardly famed for his previous adventures in direction, although his plays have been staged by some of Germanys most admired Regisseurs. Das Rheingold What most people may remember of a famous theatre or opera production is how it looked, not how it sounded, so it may be more useful to describe how the new Ring looks and functions, than how well the singers hit their high-notes. The first scene in Rheingold is set at the bottom of the River Rhine. The new visualization by set designer Frank Philipp Schlssmann is very impressive. The base of this great mythic river is composed of immense, river-rounded stones, curving from the forestage upward and back toward the misty mysteries of upstage-left. The three Rhine-Maidens are cavorting around the stones, when the amorous dwarf Alberich (Andrew Shore) emerges from among some rocks downstage. The underwater nixies only tease and tempt him. Infuriated, and tempted instead by the gleaming treasure they are guard-

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ing Alberich makes off with their precious Rhinegold. When Sir Peter Hall staged the English Ring at Bayreuth, he had his designer, William Dudley, create an immense, round, metal pool, in which his waterlogged sopranos could cavort completely naked. The audience only saw them reflected in a giant slanting mirror. This vision was a sensation, but after this initial scene, all that water had to be rapidly pumped out of the pool into an empty well underneath the Festspielhaus stage. Then the empty pool was collapsed and flown up out of sight, to make way for the construction site of Valhalla. Dorsts designer avoided all those problems by providing digital video nymphs floating overhead, in what seemed to be the scummy surface of the River Rhine. After this watery vision, the action moves to the construction of Valhalla, a daunting task indeed, as the new residence of the Gods seems to consist largely of an ancient stone eye, composed of segments. Obviously, Dorst doesnt have much experience in deploying his actor/singers on stage. All too often, they just stand around and sing, much as they must have done in Richard Wagners own time. When they do move, it often seems only a way to alter the composition a bit, even though there is nothing striking about any of the character configurations on stage. On occasion, the moves seem awkward, even random. Costumier Bernd Skodzigobviously conscious that he had to create outfits that would be more distinctive and memorable than anything previously designed by Rosalie or Erich Wonder devised some very strange all-white garments that are almost comical. The most interesting costume is that of Fricka (Michelle Breedt), with almost hornlike protuberances rising over her ears. In Die Walkre, her costume is identical, only in black. She doesnt have her traditional ram-drawn chariot, but she does have two black-clad supers with ram masks as her attendants. Oddly enough, were it not for his traditional spear, Wotan (Falk Struckmann) would be almost unrecognizable among this celestial crew. His plain white gown makes him look like Frickas butler. And, were it not for his magisterial singing, he would not command attention. As for other traditional Wagnerian symbols, Donners Hammer is nowhere to be seen, but Froh carries a rainbow-hued object that looks like a fraternity paddle. The most effective costume was that of the redhaired rascal semi-god Loge (Arnold Bezuyen). With Wotan and Fricka, he also seemed in best

voice, compared with the heavenly competition. The actual Valhalla work goes on unseen, way upstage in Stygian mists. As a major set piece it looked deliberately shabby, with a precast concrete, scaffold-supported Platten-bau section up right. The giants Fafner (Jyrki Korhonen) and Fasolt (Kwangchul Youn) appeared, as usual, on concealed stilt-shoes. Their bulky costumes looked rather like Kabuki outfits. Denied payment, they wrestled into the wings as a hostage the writhing Freia (Satu Vihvainen), which could have been much more effectively managed. Immediately, the various gods began to stoop and crouch, indicating the rapid aging that take places once Freias golden apples are no more. This seemed unnecessary, as there were three or four golden apples clearly visible on one set of steps of the water gate. Dont gods ever look around their scenic milieu? To steal Alberichs treasure (to pay the angry giants) Wotan and Loge have to descend into Nibelheim, which initially seems to be the white wall of a modern factory, with many pipes and valves. Here, Alberich wrings from Mime (Gerhard Siegel) the Golden Ring and the Tarnhelm of Invisibility. When Wotan and Loge come down the post-industrial Nibelheim staircase, a blue-smockclad contemporary technician comes out a door to check the valves. He doesnt seem to see the unwanted guests, much less enquire what they are doing in Nibelheim. Viewers may well wonder what he is doing there. A variety of other contemporary civilians are sprinkled around various scenes throughout this peculiar production. They do not seem to have any integral relationship to the milieux in which they appear, so their symbolic function is unclear. Possibly this is Dorsts awkward way of suggesting that the Ring is still relevant to modern man? Theres no sign of the Rhinegold on the factory floor, but the white wall fades away, revealing a fabulous treasure. The cave with Alberichs hoard of gold is indeed impressive: a mound of gleaming golden objects upstage, framed by jagged rocks. Amorphous dwarves with golden, gleaming eyes bring in golden ingots and other priceless objects dart, such as ewers, armors, plates, platters, vases, urns, and goblets. When Alberich seeks to impress Wotan and Loge with the powers of the Tarnhelm, he disappears behind the mound of gold, and suddenly a giant golden cobra rears up its fearsome head. Actually, this is not very well designed or achieved, as the big gold blob of the cobras hood

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was too far upstage and too hedged in by the hoard for viewers who were not front-and-center to see it. Indeed, it took me a while to figure out what it was supposed to be and by that time it had sunk out of sight. Both Alberichs transformations could have been much better managed. This also proved true of changes from one scene to another. Simply closing the great Festspielhaus curtains can be a cop-out, if a remarkable scenic transformation could have occurred before our very eyes! But then, Schlssmann had little time to work things out. When the giants return to claim their fee, they are not offered any of the golden treasures previously seen down in Nibelheim. Instead, some shabby, flat golden panels are dumped on the floor, and later laid on the recumbent figure of Freia. This scene was mess; it needs to be totally reconceived to be visually effective. As the panels are laid over Freia, they are slyly joined to each other, so Fafner can drag the entire jumble out after him. Instead of a fortune in treasure, this looks like a failed prom gown! Fortunately, a black-garbed Erda (Mihoko Fujimura) rose from the midst of the terrace to electrify the gods (and the audience) with her dire prophecies. The ancient stone eye, seen earlier, was revealed again in a mist of rainbow colors as the gods descendedrather than ascendedtoward

Valhalla. This is a very weak visual closure to what ought to be a triumphant entry into Valhalla. Had Dorst and Schlssmann listened closely to Wagners actual scorenever mind reading his stage directions in the Partiturthey might have realized what a disappointing dud this would be. Even before the gods shuffled down some unseen stairs, instead of marching up a glowing, gleaming rainbow bridge, their order was messy. Instead of using the wide stairs on the stage-right side, Wotan and Fricka had to step over the dead body of Fasolt on their way down to the basement. Fortunately the singingif not the settings and the actingwas generally strong, especially Loge, Alberich, Wotan, Fricka, and the Fasolt of Kwangchul Youn. Die Walkre Hundings hut looks like an abandoned Jugendstil railroad station. Indeed, it seems barely habitable, as a tall telephone pole, with a sword sticking out of it, has crashed through the wall. Before the desperate Siegmund (Endrich Wottrich) crashes into the space, young Hans and some friendsone with a bicycleare gathered around a slumping form. They leave; Siegmund enters, and the form wakes up to be revealed as Sieglinde (Adrianne Pieczonka). What seems most curious

Siegmund (Endrik Wottrich) and Hunding (Kwangchul Youn) meet in Act I, scene 2 of Die Walkre. Photo: Jochen Quast

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about this sceneaside from Sieglinde holding an open house for bikers while she is sleepingis that Hunding arrives with a cohort of his men to discover an unwanted guest, then dismisses his warriors, which could leave him open to attack. When the incestuous twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, discover their love for each other, the front doors of the railroad station fly open to reveal an immense, crater-pocked moon or planet. This set is supposed to suggest spring, but it looks more like an old starshow at the Hayden Planetarium. While Jrgen Flimm showed Wotan as a busy CEO, Dorst presents Wotan, Fricka, and Brnnhilde in a kind of wasteland cemetery. In the center of this blasted, stony space is a kind of pit, with a rocky eminence in its midst. This can rise or sink, and even revolve. In the dim dusty background of this wasteland are shadows of lumpy figures. Never clearly seen, they are monuments to some historical worthies such as Napoleon and a Roman Emperor, among others. Theres even a silent, black-clad Wanderer shadowing Wotan. The most amazing thing about the final confrontation of Hunding and Siegmundwho is constantly vocally overshadowed by Younis that the godly sword Nothung was not smashed to shards, at least not on the night I attended. Brnnhilde, in fact, picked up a perfect Nothung as she rushed Sieglinde into the wings. Fortunately, both Linda Watson and Falk Struckmann were in splendid voice, so this gaffe was only a momentary surprise. Fortunately, Walkre ended in a splendid scenic milieu: the Walkrien-fels was a magnificent abandoned quarry. But why Brnnhilde and her eight sisters were outfitted in such bizarre battledress was a puzzlement. Dead warriors, strewn about the rocky floor of the quarry, got up and walked off into cracks in the stone walls when nodded at by the Warrior Girls. Just to give the scene a modern nudge, a graffiti motto was projected onto the quarry wall with a bright white light. Translated into English, it read: You Love Life/We Love Death. When the saddened Wotan laid his beloved Brnnhilde on a pallet surrounded with a circle of glowing plastic panels in the floor, the Magic Fire and its accompanying music soared. The finale was very touching and very well sung, although the interactions of Wotan and Brnnhilde seemed instinctive, not the product of Dorsts muddled stagecraft.

Siegfried After the visual astonishments of Schlssmanns River Rhine and Walkrien-fels scenes, it is difficult to believe that the same hand also created the chaotic clutter of the dismal, high school chemistry classroom that takes the place of Mimes customary cave. Among the many unnecessary props are a skeleton, Siegfrieds crib, a slide projector, a blackboard, a globe of the world, stacks of classroom chairs, an empty oil drum, a folding medical screen, and a meat grinder. This last machine Siegfried uses to grind up the shards of the shattered Nothung. As there is no anvil, no real sword-forging takes place. In all this clutter, chaos, and confusion, Mimes mixing of the poisoned drink is hardly noticeable. As in previous Ring scenes, the contemporary world intrudes on the mythical. A night-watchman is camping out in a tent high above the dense thicket of tree stumps and half-trunked naked gray trees that fill the stage during the next scene. The tent, sitting on the unfinished end of an elevated railroad line, seems a direct steal from Hans Schavernochs set for the Bregenz Festival Porgy and Bess some seasons ago on Lake Constance. When Mime and Siegfried finally come on the scene, the woods seem very bucolic and arboreal, but when Siegfried calls out to Fafner, the forest floor gives way to a red-hot lava pool. Instead of the dragon, some fearsome, teeth-like stalactites hang from the roof of the cave. Later, Erda rose from the bowels of the Earth in a smoky black void. In Rheingold, she was wearing a basic black dress, with no accessories. Here, she appeared completely covered in large clear bubbles! I suspect designer Bernd Skodzig was having a bit of fun with that ancient vision of the Magna Mater. Only when Siegfried awakens the sleeping, semi-broasted Brnnhilde, does this arc of the Ring catch fire. Wagners glorious, triumphant music sweeps all before it, carrying the lovers and the audience forward on a surging tide of enveloping ecstasy. Linda Watson was magnificentboth acting and singingas was Stephen Gould. And Conductor Christian Thielemann got yet another standing ovation! Gtterdmmerung Designer Frank Philipp Schlssmanns vision of the three Norns was infinitely foreboding.

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Frank Philipp Schlssmanns questionable design of Valhalla in Gtterdmmerung. Photo: Jochen Quast

With skull-like faces and in long black robes they sat upon a hill of skulls! The vision of Valhalla that Schlssmann called into being, however, looked like the Hotel Intercontinental in Detroit. In line with a number of recent contemporary settings for Wagners Hall of the Gibichungs, this foyer was distinguished by a huge Treppenhaus on the stage-right side. Along the line of the forestage to this space were many pairs of shoes, all in a row, which seemed to belong to no one. Yet despite all the conceptual and visual infelicities of this fourth and final arc of the Ring, Linda Watson was tremendously moving and powerful as the wronged Brnnhilde, with Stephen Gould steadily growing in power and confidence as Siegfried. Hans-Peter Knigs deeply resonant Hagen dominated almost every moment in which he was involved. The passionate Waltraute of Mihoko Fujimura was wildly and justly applauded. Janet Collins, Martina Dike, and Irene Thorin were admirable Norns. Fionnuala McCarthy, Ulrike Helzel, and Marina Prudenskaya were the frisky Rheintchter. Dorsts peculiar concept of having contemporary people strolling through the scenes of this Ring makes no visual or dramaturgical sense. And so it is that at the close, it is not Valhalla that is on fire, but instead the Los Angeles Hilton, with

panicked guests fleeing with half-closed suitcases. The Bregenz Festival 2006 Last summer, immediately after the last performance of the Bregenz Festival, the entire staff began ripping all the old seats out of the Festival Theatre. A complete renovation and re-seating was begun, including major changes and improvements to public spaces, foyers, seminar rooms, and conference facilities. What was not at all certain was how rapidly this could be accomplished. Thus, no opening premiere of a neglected or forgotten opera was scheduled for the Festspielhaus. Instead, Haydn and Mozart symphonies took the spotlight. In August, however, Claude Debussys Fall of the House of Usher was performed on the main stage. But this was too late for me, as I was already immersed in Mozart in Vienna. The opening premiere was instead presented in the Festspielhauss adjoining Werkstatt-Bhne. Friedrich Cerhas Spiegel in concert Although Friedrich Cerha is now regarded as Austrias leading contemporary composer, in the United States he is still best known as the genius

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who completed the score of Alban Bergs opera Lulu. What is little-knownor unrealizedin America, is that Cerha had already composed a score for Bertolt Brechts avant-garde drama Baal as well as a score for Carl Zuckmayers Der Rattenfnger. Surely one or more of these challenging Cerha works will come alive on the stages of the Bregenz Festival before long. In the meantime, this summers festival opened with Cerhas Spiegel, never yet realized on the opera stage. It was presented in concert in the Werkstatt-Bhne, profiting from the remarkable new acoustic sound in this large, flexible performance space. Sylvain Cambreling conducted the Sd-West-Funk Symphony Orchestra of BadenBaden/Freiburg. The musicians were required to create, without melody or rhythm, volumes of sound, as well as sound-voids, on traditional instruments which were often thumped or thrummed in ways Bach or Beethoven never imagined. Not since the glory days of Carl Orff have so many kinds of percussive Schlag-werk been in service of a concept: drums, xylophones, chimes, wood-blocks, maracas, and cymbals galore! Tape-recorded sounds were also introduced. With Spiegel, which consists of seven

strange and contrasting sections, there was an underlying tone that seemed to grow in volume, often followed by a diminuendo which suggested a kind of mirroring of the sound-image. This work is, after all, effectually titled Mirror. One of the most impressive sections involved relentless drumming which increased in intensity and volume until it sounded like an engulfing wave. What first struck me, however, was that most of the sections could, with some adaptation, make very powerful soundtracks for film noir productions. I longed to see some pages of the Partitur to see how he notated what could not be set down in conventional do-remi bars of music. As had been earlier done with Orffs Carmina, the score could be danced or mimed, or effectually brought to life with human figures, frozen or slowly-evolving entities, with a panoply of lights playing over them. Thats one way to see this work onstage. But no onenot even the Bregenz Festivalhas dared to do it yet. Der Troubadour The visual signature of the Bregenz Festival has always been the looming setting on the great Lake Stage, pile-driven just off-shore on Lake

An aerial view of the fantastic oil refinery of Der Troubadour. Photo: courtesy Bregenz Festspiele

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Constance. In 2005, international travelers on their various ways from Lindau to Zrich were astonished to see an immense rusty orange oil refinery standing tall in the waters of the Bodensee! This was the setting for Verdis Il Trovatore. The great refinery is anchored at four corners with huge hydroformer towers, which could also be the turrets of a medieval fortress. It makes sense for Count Luna to be a tyrannical modern oil baron or CEO, intent on suppressing any dissent among the workers. The word fire is used over a hundred times in the libretto, so this has been a visual and emotional through-line in the production. In fact, in the opening bars of the overture, multiple tongues of flame leap upward from the forestage, littered with abandoned orange oil drums. High overhead, the refinery smokestacks gush huge bursts of flame. In some choral passages, these immense orange chimneys belch fire in time with the music! At the searing close, all systems are go in the fire department. On a hot Bregenz evening, the heat is almost unbearable in the audience of some 7,000 spectators. Especially impressive were the Azucena of Larissa Diadkova and the Graf Luna of Zeljko Lucic. As Leonora, Iano Tamar was both lovely to look at (in costume designer Miruna Boruzescus slinky gowns) and compelling to hear. Carl Tanners Manrico wasnt as effortless, but then he was sprinting all over yards and yards of catwalks and refinery stairs! Others in the premiere performance were Giovanni Batista Parodi, as Ferrando; Deanne Meek, as Ines; and Jos Luis Ordonez, as Ruiz. The Moscow Chamber Chorus joined the Bregenz Festspiel-Chor to provide powerful Verdian vocal enhancements, uniformed military police, dancers, and various fascists and gypsies. Because the Wiener Symphoniker has to play shut away under the stage, it is now projected on huge video screens at either side of the stage for all to see Next summer, the monumental lakeside production will be Puccinis Tosca. As Romes ancient Castel Sant Angelotopped with that famous Angelis a major scene, the potential set promises to be fantastic beyond imagining. The Edinburgh Festival This August, the world-renowned Edinburgh Festival was sixty years old! It was reported in a London newspaper that an anonymous

donor has left the Festival some $3.7 million in his or her will; this will surely help with the ever-rising costs of production and presentation, along with the considerable contributions of all the corporate sponsors, whom reporters and critics were asked to mention in their reports and reviews. In recent summers there seems to have been a reduction in the number of outstanding international productions on offer at the festival. This may very well reflect the decreases in arts subsidies in many lands, as touring is expensive, and productions brought to Edinburgh have to be heavily subsidized by their nations of origin. Initially, the Fringe ran during the three weeks of the major events, using church-halls and sanctuaries, school assembly rooms, and lodge halls for venues, but now it opens in early August, a week before the real Festival, and it seems to extend to the end of the month as well. There are not just hundreds of productions and performances, but thousands! Some of the Fringe Firsts and other shows on view this past August will surely turn up in Manhattan, at P. S. 122 and 59E59, among other alternative venues. And some of the major entries in the Festival itself may in time come to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Peter Steins magisterial staging of Shakespeares Troilus and Cressida is a possibility. Troilus and Cressida After decades of celebrity as one of Europes most innovative and dynamic directors, Germanys Peter Stein may be wearing out his welcome with some major British critics. Several colleagues found his Edinburgh Festival and Royal Shakespeare Company co-production of the Bards Trojan War play rather dull. I did not. On the contrary, I found it to be especially well-focused. Although Troilus and Cressida is not often staged possibly because of its duality of focusit is a powerful play, with some notable speeches and compelling verbal clashes, which Peter Stein was careful to highlight. Deft isolations of lighting by designer Japhy Weideman not only made clear where the action was, but also focused attention on major characters in action and speaking powerfully to the issues at hand. This effect was immeasurably aided by the attention paid to the various speeches by all the other characters on stage at the time. They were

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Richard Clothier as Hector and Vincent Regan as Achilles in Troilus and Cressida. Photo: Douglas Robertson

actually listening and reacting, if only silently! This is not a hallmark of RSC productions in general, so this made the drama even more compelling. Of course, the framework of the drama is provided by the lustful eagerness of the pimping Pandarus (Paul Jesson) to bring his niece Cressida (Annabel Scholey) together carnally with the young Trojan Prince Troilus (Henry Pettigrew). But the grander scale of the war, involving the sulking Achilles (Vincent Regan), the pathetic Menelaus (John Kane), the crafty Ulysses (David Yelland), the doomed prophetess Cassandra (Kate Miles) and the valiant Hector (Richard Clothier) is not neglected either. Others in the fine RSC cast include: Simon Armstrong as Aeneas, Arthur Cox as the Trojan High Priest Calchas, Adam Levy as Paris, Ian Hogg as Agamemnon, John Franklyn-Robbins as a tedious Nestor, Julian Lewis Jones as a strong but stupid Ajax, and Ian Hughes as a lascivious, jester-like Thersites. Peter Stein and his set and costume designers Ferdinand Wgerbauer and Anna Marie Heinrich are to be praised for suggesting the action in a rather abstract space with semi-historic costumes. Among the Trojans, also admirable were: Jeffry Wickahm as Priam, Charlotte Moore as

Andromache, and Rachel Pickup as Helen, the cause of this devastating war. Brazils Grupo de Rua de Niteri Grupo de Rua de Niteri is Bruno Beltros group of young, athletic, male street dancers. Having auditioned the best dancers he could find he chose twelve to perform his new, full-length opus, H2. This was performed in the cavernous Edinburgh Playhouse, a dark and unwelcoming venue, but the home of dance during the Festival. The most interesting aspect of the production was the use of defined lighting and novel projections on a kind of right-angled, all-white performance pad. The variations of hip-hop and breakdancing were energetic, but you can see more interesting and challenging work on Fifth Avenue any day. Although Beltro called this work full-length, it was fairly short, without intermission. I arrived too late in the season to see el Grupos shorter works at The Hub: Telesquat, Me and My Choreographer, From Popping To Pop or Vice-Versa, and Too Legit To Quit. These were admired by some critics, and the programs were longerabout an hour and fortyminutes.

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Don Quixote George Balanchines sometime muse, Suzanne Farrellfounder and artistic director of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, based at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DCbrought her talented ensemble to the Edinburgh Playhouse for five performances of her revival/reconstruction of The Masters Don Quixote ballet, which originally featured Balanchine himself as the doomed Don. This visually sumptuous staging is a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada, so it is sure to have a lot of exposure, although the apparent bulk and weight of the various settings suggest it will be costly and difficult to tour. The Heathrow terrorist bombscares did not help various visiting productions, and it seemed the Farrell Ballet had not had time enough for a proper set-up and rehearsal. In any case, the set pieces, including a giant book that opens to reveal a staircase, are dark, awkward, and old-fash-

ioned. I saw Balanchine in this role years ago: 1965, in fact. It was, of course, wonderful to see him on stage once again, despite his advancing age, but the role as conceived was more that on an onlooker, responding with movement, rather than performing astonishing balletic feats. Most of the deft dancing went on around him with the Don asleep in dreamland during some showy solos, duos, and corps workouts. Farrells old role, Dulcinea, has much more to offer, but she has not straightjacketed her successor with a replica of her Dulcinea. Aside from the Cervantes-inspired induction and the deathbed resolution, the effect is rather like an extended Auroras Wedding. In fact, designer Holly Hynes richly resplendent Spanish court costumes do much to enhance interest in some of the choreographies. The enchanting Interlude in a magical garden is the performances high point. These dances show the Farrell Ballet at its best. Nonethe-less, this reconstructionwith a score by Nicholas Nabokovwould be much more impressive if the principals had the magic of the original Don and Dulcinea. That was too much to hope for. The Assassin Tree One always looks forward to impressive opera productions at the Edinburgh Festival, so it was encouraging to realize I could at the last minute get a ticket for the world premiere of composer Stuart MacRaes The Assassin Tree. Commissioned by Fest Chief Brian McMaster, this work was MacRaes first adventure with opera. That the opera-innocent MacRae gradually came to be enthralled by the works of Richard Wagner is aurally evident in some Fafner-like rumblings in his eclectic score, which also has some jazzy moments. The narrative hook for this new work is Sir James Frasiers mythic tale of the King of the Sacred Wood, dedicated to the Goddess Diana. To become the servant of the

Eric Ragan as Sancho Panza and Momchil Mladenov as Don Quixote. Photo: Paul Kolnik

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The Assassin Tree: Paul Whelan as the Priest and Gillian Keith as Diana. Photo: Catherine Ashmore

Goddess and guard her sacred tree, the ambitious knight must kill the current King of the Wood. The Death is a sacrifice to the moon-goddess, who thrives on such sexual and spiritual conquests. But the new King can never sleep, and as he grows older and weaker, he is always prey for a new challenger. Richard Strauss could really have made a powerful opera out of this mythic material. But Simon Armitage, despite some felicitous turns of phrase, has not created powerful poetry for his protagonists to sing. Nordespite MacRaes announced aim of humanizing the ritual figures of Frasiers original fabledo they have any especial character or interest. Actually, MacRaes writing for the four voices is more impressive than the orchestral rumblings that underscore them. The able singers were Gillian Keith, Paul Whelan, Peter Van Hulle, and Colin Ainsworth. Garry Walker conducted the Britten Sinfonia, but there were some squeaks and squawks in the brass that did not seem part of the score. This premiere production was not especially aided by the direction, lighting, and setting of Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, who have already left their mark on the Festival. Several critics were annoyed by the black-clad Mime in the

background who aped the stiffly choreographed movements of the major characters. Frankly, I thought this was a nice touch, adding some muchneeded visual interest. All Gong and No Dinner was the headline on the Daily Telegraphs review of the premiere. This was a co-production of the Festival and the Scottish Opera, which means more audiences will have to sit through it. The Edinburgh Military Tattoo One of the earliest and most popular innovations of the young Edinburgh International Festival was the creation of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a marvelous show of massed military bands and drill teams, complemented with ensembles of singers and dancers from various nations represented at the Festival. The Tattoo has, over the years, become a destination for thousands and thousands of visitors to Edinburgh in August, many of whom have no thought of attending an opera or a play in the regular Festival. In fact, Tattoo organizers have counted some 217,000 spectators each summer. Since its inception, it has become a model for other Tattoos and military shows abroad, in part because foreign national military band-and-drill

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ensembles appearing in Edinburgh have brought the message of its attractions home with them. Initially, it showcased Scots traditional songs, dances, drills, and military uniforms. But it also offered crack military teams demonstrating split-second cooperation in setting up camp, building temporary bridges, and other valued battlefield skills. I used to be a regular at the Tattoo, but in recent years, perhaps mistakenly, thought I should dedicate any free evenings to exploring new works on the Fringe. Now, comparing some half-baked, avant-garde experiments to the brilliantly organized spectacle of the Tattoo shows me how wrong I was not to make a point of the Tattoo every summer. This summer I missed the former military competitions between teams, say, setting up a pontoon bridge or digging trenches. The reason, I was told, is that the British military has other, more important obligations at the moment. The 2006 Tattoo was the 57th in Festival Season. It was also the 15th and final Tattoo for its Chief Executive and Producer, the genial, efficient Brigadier Mel Jameson. With more than 1,000 performers in the show, it requires real military organization and precision in its operations. The largest pipe band ever was assembled on the Castle Esplanade this August. These military musicians were drawn from the pipers of the Scots Guards, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, the Irish Guards, the Black Watch, the Royal Highland Fusiliers, the Royal Scots Borderers, and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. As though these forces were not enough, they were enhanced by pipers from Australia, South Africa, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, and the Royal Air Force. In total, there were 13 pipe bands, with some 260 pipers and drummers! When all the military bands and drill units were united in the arena, the effect was both splendid and deafening. Among the musical visitors, military and otherwise, were the Chinese Jiangxi Xishan Kung Fu ensemble, the Chilean National Ballet with that nations finest military band, the New Zealand Army Band, the Capetown Highlanders, the Queensland Police Band, andone of the Tattoos most admired precision teamsthe Top Secret Drum Corps from Switzerland. The Edinburgh Fringe In a very short week, there was very little time to explore the scores of Fringe productions still

The pipes and drums of the 57th Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Photo: courtesy Edinburgh Military Tattoo

on view. Nor was there any time for the Annual Edinburgh Film Festival, the TV Festival, the Book Festival, and other Assorted Festivals. But, as I have each summer been photographing the snailpaced construction of the new Scottish Parliament, now that it is finally open, I did share in its festival of politics. Because there are so very many productions offered on the Fringe, its not easy to know where to start. My rule is to begin at the Traverse Theatre. If the Royal Lyceum Theatre is Edinburghs establishment repertory ensemble, then the Traverse is its home for the alternative and experimental adventures. New Scots plays often get their first and finest productions here, as well as new dramas from elsewhere in the British Isles. The Traverse now has three intimate performance spaces, so some of the shows are invited, not Traverse productions. The productions on view this past August included: Strawberries in January from Paines Plough; Unprotected from Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse; Improbable Frequency

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from Irelands Rough Magic; Township Stories from Lions Den and UK Arts; International Pumpgirl from Londons Bush Theatre; Particularly in the Heartland from The Team; Food from theimaginarybody; Goodness from Canadas Volcano; Bodies in Transit from Denmarks Mucca Divina; Stars from Nutshell; Onysos the Wild from Compagnie Rhapsodie; Tone Clusters from the Arches Theatre; Black Watch from the National Theatre of Scotland; and Dr Ledbetters Experiment from the Performance Corporation. And then there was the only Traverse-commissioned and produced show I was able to see: Petrol Jesus Nightmare #5 There had been quite a buzz about this show; some critics had in fact raved. As Henry Adams prize-winning The People Next Door had been successfully shown recently in Manhattan at 59E59, I thought I had better take a look, in preparation for another transfer from the Traverse. Petrol Jesus Nightmare #5 has, at its core, a very explosive subject: the fervent desire of American Protestant fundamentalists to provoke open warfare between Jews and Arabs, leading to Armageddon, Christs Second Coming, the End of Days, the Last Judgment, and the Rapture, in which the Christian elect will be elevated into heaven in their still-living physical bodies. This vision of things soon to come is embodied in The Texan, an oil-savvy good ole boy, ably played by Lewis Howden. He has come on a tour of the Holy Land with the sex-obsessed widow of a Zionist Rabbi, who was murdered on the streets of New York City. The Texan, it eventually appears, has befriended the late Rabbi, in hopes of fuelling more Israeli-Arab violence. He has in fact got every member of his megachurch in Texas to contribute money for the Rabbis cause. 10,000 fundamentalist Christians aiding Israel: We dont do small in Texas, he tells the Israeli officer, Yossariat (Joseph Thompson), who has been detailed to keep the tourists out of trouble.

Unfortunately, the Texan and the Rabbis widow started throwing stones at shops in a densely crowded Arab quarter of Jerusalem. Now they have taken refuge in a bombed-out house where two Israeli soldiers have been discussing their pasts and sexual problems. At the close, the Rabbis Wife has been shot dead, and the Texan is effectively crucified. But before Yossariat leaves, he douses the floor with gasoline. Will this play find an audience in New York? The topic is indeed inflammatory, but the actual drama is not very well developed. Other Important Venues In addition to the Traverse Theatre, the Assembly and the Pleasance customarily offer a wide range of challenging productions in a variety of attractive venues. William Burdett-Coutts organizes the Assembly programs, named for the historic neo-Georgian assembly rooms where they got their start. Now it also uses the Assembly Hall, site of the conferences of the Church of Scotland and, until recently, home of the Scottish Parliament. Anthony Alderson is the chief of the Pleasance. Here were some of the shows on view in August: End of the Rainbow, Tango Fire, Jump, Jim Hensons Puppet Improv, Gismo Love, Laugh-aPoolooza, AllegianceWinston Churchill and Michael Collins, Teen Scream, Virgins, The Receipt, Devils Advocate, Midnight Cowboy, Puppet City, True West, Terre Haute, Finders Fee, Spymonkey Cooped, Two Men Talking, The Point of Yes, Diary of a Nobody, Tick My Box!, Star Trip, Moon the Loon, Pandoras Box, Skin of the Moon, Animal Farm, Clean Alternatives, One Set to Love, Three Mo Tenors, Them with Tails, Doom Riders, Kilty Pleasures, This Is Not about the Simpsons, The Gruffalos Child, Mozarts Back!, Why Pay More?, Graffiti Classics, Peccadillo Circus, What I Heard about Iraq, The Black Sheep, MyoSung Streetdance, Flamenco Jazz Umbrella, Loudon Wainwright III, and The Spaghetti Western Orchestra.

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Avignon Looks Forward: The Festival Celebrates Sixty Years

Philippa Wehle The Avignon Festival celebrated its birthday from July 6 to 27; sixty years of bringing innovative theater and performance to audiences that flock each year to the many converted cloisters and courtyards scattered throughout the city and the quarries beyond its ramparts. This year, sculptors, musicians, choreographers, theater directors, and even miniature train engineers shared the stage with actors and dancers. There were exhibits, films, panels, meetings with performers and directors and the usual wandering entertainers and young actors handing out fliers for the over seven hundred productions in the Off Festival, all contributing to make this anniversary a very special event. In contrast to last years festival, which met with turbulent protests from both critics and audiences, this year guest artistic director Josef Nadj opted for a more acceptable program that included the great masters such as Peter Brook, Bartabas, Alain Franon and Vassiliev along with the fascinating work of a new generation: Stfan Kaegi, Arthur Nauzyciel, Thierry Bae, Guy Cassier, and Joel Pommerat, among others. Tribute was paid of course to Jean Vilar, founder of the festival in 1947. Actors from early Vilar productions spoke at the Maison Jean Vilar and there was an exhibit of his companys costumes in the Popes palace. There was also a three-day colloquium, The Avignon Festival: History on the Move with presentations by top scholars and artists, and an evening organized by Olivier Py, with readings from Vilars writings by some of Frances best known actors and actresses, presented in the famous Honor Court where it all began. Most festival offerings, however, were turned toward the future with an emphasis on adventurous experiments that question the nature of theater and new provocative work. The two most sought after tickets in the festival were Mnemopark, a world of miniature trains from Switzerland, and Paso Doble, an original performance created by choreographer Josef Nadj and Spanish sculptor Miguel Barcelo, both unique pieces. Mnemopark, a world of miniature trains, a production of Theater Basel, written and directed by 33 year-old Stfan Kaegi, co-founder of Rimini Protokoll, a company known for its documentary pieces featuring inhabitants of old age homes, retirees, and unemployed workers, experts, (Kaegis term) with creative worlds of their own to share with potential audiences, was great fun. For Mnemopark these experts are five retirees, model train buffs who have built and played with locomotives and trains most of their

A scene from Mnemopark, a world of miniature trains from Theater Basel. Photo: Christophe Raynard de Lage

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lives. It was a surprise to many when they discovered that the entire playing space of the Benoit XII theater was taken up with a miniature train set, complete with stations, tunnels, bridges and whistles, placed on a raised platform and covered with a reduced map of Switzerland. A film of a snowy landscape is projected on a large screen, a whistle blows and were off. Rahel Hubacher, a professional actress, will be our guide on our two-hour train ride through snow-covered mountains, lush green valleys, farms with plastic cows and chickens, and quaint little chalets. Mini-cameras attached to the locomotives enlarge the details of the landscape and project them onto the screen along with images of the train masters at work, real cows, and even a huge hand of one of the engineers pointing to a replica of his own house. As Rahel takes us through farms with clucking chickens and mooing cows, and introduces us to a rooster, a real one, in a cage located along the way, she also entertains us with details and statistics. We learn that there are 7 million chickens and 7.2 million inhabitants in Switzerland, that the country measures 41,285 square kilometers and has x number of miles of railroad tracks. She even treats us to a lecture on how bulls sperm is used. We soon meet the train masters; builders and owners of these superb miniatures. Max Kurrus, who was given his first locomotive at the age of seven and who built the canton of Grisons; Hermann Lohle, a former cabinet maker who has sixty-four trains, and Heidi Ludewig, the only woman in the group, called the intellectual because she builds her landscapes based on literary sources. These experts are clearly focused from beginning to end on caring for their artistic creations; they share with us how careful they have to be when transporting these pieces while lamenting that many things were damaged on the way to Avignon. They are indeed impressive to watch as they move around the set surveying their miniature masterpieces to make sure theyre functioning optimally, and that theyre on time. But Mnemopark is not all trains and statistics. The cast also sings and tells personal anecdotes, and there is even a Bollywood film being made: The Adventures of Anjun and Priyanka, would-be bank robbers. Indian film directors, were told, prefer the verdant valleys of Switzerland for their scenes of couples frolicking and dancing in the hills. There is also a contest and the winner gets

to experience his or her life in flashback by standing in front of a green screen that projects their images onto the larger screen as if they were in a film of their past. Theres Max flying an airplane in 1942, Hermann on a bicycle in 1961, and Heidi escaping to the West in 1956. As a grand finale, the train masters and Rahel come together to dance an Indian dance as they invite us to come join them and admire their mini-train world. As delightful as it has been riding with the experts through their Lilliputian world, sharing their memories and knowledge, it eventually becomes clear that this is not the real Switzerland. We are in fact watching an idyllic recreation of a perfectly manicured, prosperous country. Mnemopark means memory park, but these memories lie somewhere between reality and fiction. The large subsidies the government supposedly gives to agriculture, Stefan Kaegi tells us, are not used to promote agriculture but rather to preserve the illusion of pristine meadows and beautifully maintained rural landscapes where cows happily graze. Ironically, one of the stops on our trip is the town of Paradies, but Switzerland is not Paradise, Kaegi says, and the Swiss are living in a false image of their country. Paso Doble, the other ticket that Avignon audiences were scrambling to get, was equally inventive. Conceived and created by Josef Nadj and Spanish sculptor Miguel Barcelo, with a soundscape by Alain Mah, it gave audiences a unique opportunity to watch a work of art in transformation and to see how far artists will go to be in the painting itself. In the Celestine church, where an exhibit of Barcelos sculptures, ceramics, and charcoal drawings was on display throughout the festival, audiences face a stage made of clay, its floor a rich rust color, the back wall, a lacquered off-white. Sounds of hitting, punching, and slapping are heard, coming from behind the wall. Nadj and Barcelo are nowhere to be seen. Only imprints of their hands appear on the wall, as snake-like figures pop out, and bubbles burst open revealing the rust-colored clay beneath the mother of pearl surface. Dressed in dark suits, the sculptor and the choreographer come from behind the wall to perform their paso doble, their two-step dance. Barcelo, with pick axe and bucket, Nadj, with shovel in hand, stand still for a barely a moment before digging into the clay with all their might. Barcelo swings his axe into the earth, lifting up thin lumps of clay that form a series of peaks. Nadj joins in, throwing gobs of clay at the white wall, which quickly becomes a work of art in

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constant transformation. Barcelo bangs on the floor until he creates a pool of water while Nadj bangs his fists into the wall, covering old designs with new. Suddenly, Barcelo climbs up the slippery wall to put pieces of clay along the top while Nadj kneads the wall with his thumbs, designing a tree here, a squiggle there. Weve barely had time to admire each new transformation when the artists leave the stage and quickly return with two large clay jars, which they place on their heads. Punching at their own jars, they sculpt masks, with large, exaggerated noses, eyes, and mouths. These are quickly removed and thrown at the wall and replaced with other jars; new masks are created and thrown again at the wall, and so on. Barcelo now takes out a hose and sprays a white clay powder over the tableau, coating itand Nadj, who is leaning against the wall, barely able to stand upfrom top to bottom. Paso Doble is a type of music often played at bullfights just before the kill. As Barcelo and Nadjs dance is coming to an end, Nadj slumps to his knees against the wall, embedded as it were in his own artistic creation. Barcelo piles more clay jars on his partners head, topping them off with a small black jar. Like the matador in a bullfight, he raises his sharp tools and charges at Nadj, stabbing the black pot and releasing Nadj from the wall as the jars fall from his head. Exhausted, covered with white dust, the two artists dig holes in the wall and slip through them to the sounds of gurgling water sucking them in. The piece is over, the artwork has existed and been transformed in the space of only one hour. The floor and the wall of this ongoing creation must be rebuilt for the next performance so that it can be demolished once again. In the realm of dance-theater,Thierry Bae, dancer and choreographer, and hip-hop artist/choreographer Hamid Ben Mahi, presented two equally intriguing crossover works: Journal dinquietude and Faut quon parle! Journal dinquietude, pice impossible pour un danseur et ses doublures (Diary of anxiety: An impossible performance for a dancer and his understudies) by 47 year-old choreographer Thierry Bae, is a humorous and poignant self-portrait of an aging dancer questioning his present and future prospects. It begins as a solo dance piece, with Bae trying out new moves, while a voiceover of the choreographer himself comments on and corrects the moves, giving himself a hard time until he gets it right. This is followed by a film about the doubts and trials of an aging choreographer, played by Bae,

A scene from the end of Nadj and Barcelos Paso Doble. Photo: Christophe Raynard de Lage

who goes from administrators and agents to presenters and funders in an effort to sell them his new piece. From a meeting with well-known choreographer Catherine Diverres, who wants to help but cant, to an appointment with Josef Nadj at Charles de Gaulle airport, caught between planes and cell phone calls, Baes efforts are constantly met with failure. Other segments of the film deal with how to cope with serious illness, visits to doctors, attempts at getting back into shape: how to survive, in a word, the trials and tribulations of an aging artist. In the final section, a surprise guest artist performs the new dance piece that Bae was creating in the beginning. It is a different dancer each night: Diverres one night, Nadj another, Hamid Ben Mahi yet another, all friends and collaborators who no doubt share Baes concerns. Thierry Baes Journal dinquietude, an intimate diary of his own anxieties, beautifully captures the dilemma dancers must face when they are no longer viable artists and may encounter professional difficulties, and it speaks to

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Hamid Ben Mahis solo work, Faut quon parle! Photo: Christophe Raynard de Lage

them with grace and humor in a form that is somewhere between fiction and reality. Faut quon parle!, Hamid Ben Mahis collaboration with Guy Alloucherie is also a self-portrait, a solo piece in which images and words merge with acting and dancing to create a portrait composed of the memories and challenges of a child of immigration, raised in a housing project in the suburbs of Bordeaux. The title Faut quon parle! (We have to talk!) says it all; Hamid Ben Mahi urgently wants to tell us of his personal journey as the son of Algerian parents who moved to France and separated early on but also of the problems of immigration in general; he wants to speak to us of racism, the Algerian war, exile and life in the projects. Alone in his living room, surrounded by a sofa, a coffee table, a lamp, a strange medieval suit of armor, and a movie screen, he begins by trying out a few dance moves, but he is clearly more interested in telling us his story. And a fascinating story it is. It is the tale of a young boy whose father kidnapped him and his

sister and took them with him to Algeria only to return them later to their mother at the housing project, of the hardships his mother endured as a cleaning lady, of good times and bad with boyhood friends playing with tin cans and pieces of wire in the streets of the Cit des Aubiers. Monologues alternate with film clips and dance numbers. He introduces his boyhood friends, his family, as he calls them, and tells us how they discovered hiphop, and how dancing gave them a way to forget the reality surrounding them. Ben Mahi, a gifted street dancer, is offered scholarships to study with Rosella Hightower in Cannes and the Alvin Ailey Dance company in New York. Saved through dance, he demonstrates his knowledge of Graham, Limon, and Ailey, but he also gives a lecture on colonization, and immigration and the children of immigration and shows us a film of his return to Algeria as a professional dancer, twenty-seven years after his father took him there. Ben Mahi now has his own company, Hors Srie, and is known for his special brand of hip-hop and his workshops with a new generation from the projects. He is one of the lucky ones. Joel Pommerats Les marchands, at the Thtre Municipal, an original play, deals with poverty and unemployment in a completely different vein. More silent film than theater, as the protagonists are silent most of the time, the piece opens on a spacious living room, bare but for two chairs, a table with a small light hanging over it, a bar and a TV set. This could be the chic minimalist dcor of an elegant apartment in a luxury building, but soon the story of one of the two women seated behind the table will prove otherwise. All is gray, black and white. Shadows and figures in dark outfits move silently and mysteriously through this strange tale of abject poverty, sacrifice and communion with the dead. It is destitution in a modern dcor, as the narrator tells us. One of the young women behind the table is the narrator of her friends story in voice over. She tells us how her friend bought this expensive apartment but cannot pay for it; how she has tried endless times to get her assembly line job back at Norscilor, the nearby chemical factory that employs over 20,000 workers but never succeeds; of her family refuses to help her, of her son and her visions of visitations from her dead parents. A series of short scenes, each one lasting only one or two minutes and punctuated by blackouts, takes us through the sad tale of this nameless young woman unable to face the reality of her

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predicament and who prefers the world of the dead and past that was so clearly executed in Isabellas to the world of the living. She cannot seem to do Room, however, is purposefully scattered in this anything right. When her family reluctantly comes piece, leaving some audience members confused as to celebrate her sons birthday, the electricity goes to how to put the puzzle together out because she hasnt paid the bill. Her friend, the The Needcompanys team of eight gifted narrator, becomes increasingly paralyzed and ends actors-dancers-singers dashes onto the stage wearup in a brace unable to move, so that she can no ing white jackets and sparkling gowns, ready, it longer help the young woman. seems to be the backup singers for Axel, the main Mysterious figures come and go: a young character, who appears dressed in a shimmering woman who offers to help her; a politician who white tuxedo, takes the microphone, and begins to sings a love song; an older son from a previous relatell his sad tale of ordering a lobster at his favorite tionship; but nothing and no one seems to matter to restaurant, Rue de Flandres. Unfortunately the her as much as her desire for work. Work is the cenwaiter with the lobster tripped and fell on him, ruinter of the lives of the factory employees, it defines ing his suit. In the fraction of a second it took for them; it is their identity. They are the merchants (les the sauce to reach his beautiful white suit, he tells marchands), who sell their bodies and souls to keep us, he saw his whole life blow up in his face. This their jobs. sets off a series of fragmented scenes and situations, When the news comes that there has been played out against a background of boat refugees, an explosion at the factory and it will have to close criminals, cloning experiments with human beings, down, the young woman is so horrified by the idea and burning cities. of thousands of people out of work, who, like herself, will have no meaning to their lives, she sacrifices her son so that the factory can be saved. She throws her child from the twentyfirst floor, is arrested and committed to a psychiatric hospital. It turns out, however, that her sacrifice has not been in vain. Miracles seem to happen as a result. Her friend is no longer paralyzed and she not only returns to work, she discovers that she is mysteriously pregnant. When visited by her friends at the hospital, the young woman surprisingly tells them that she is happy. Les marchands weaves a strange tale indeed, told in chiaroscuro tones. It is a piece in which gestures speak, rather than voices, and visions and strange effects create a special atmosphere of otherworldliness. Jan Lauwers and Needcompanys new piece Le Bazar du Homard (The Lobster Shop), which played at the open-air Celestin Cloisters theater, was yet another provocative festival production. Similar in some ways to Isabellas Room, which played to rave reviews in the 2004 festival, and performed by essentially the same company of multi-talented performers (with the exception of the Viviane De Muynck, who had her own solo piece playing elsewhere), Le Bazar du Homard did not meet with quite the same enthusiasm. Both are memory pieces, both are played on an all-white stage, and both combine dance, theater, music, video The narrator of Les Marchands, written and directed by Joel Pommerat. and spoken text. But the integration of present
Photo: Christophe Raynard de Lage

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Needcompanys multi-media Le Bazar du Homard. Photo: Christophe Raynard de Lage

The main story concerns Axel and his wife Theresa, who leaves him when their son unexpectedly dies. Axel tries to block out this tragedy but his grief is so great that he decides to end his life. Before he can carry out his plan, however, the play follows a twisted path through a surreal world of strange characters. Salman, the first human clone, created by Axel (a biogenetic scientist) using Jimi Hendrixs DNA, and Vladimir, a Russian truck driver and first cloned bear, are part of the motley crew, along with Mo, the transformer, a quick-change artist who plays a boat refugee, the waiter, a terrorist, an artist and a smuggler. Nasty, whose name speaks for itself, and Axels psychiatrist Catherine are also present along with Theresa, Axel and even their son, who it seems may or may not be dead after all. Throughout the five acts of the show, all of these characters question who they really are. Who is Salman? the first cloned man? Salman Rushdie? Jimi Hendrix? Or the problematic one, as he is referred to? Who is Vladimir? A truck driver, or a cloned bear who appears on stage wearing a large bear suit in one scene, and only half of the suit in another? Is he half bear, half man? Or a bear, named John Ernest St. James? The ubiquitous Mo says: I am but I dont know what I am. Such questions are intriguing, and they keep us guessing. In Act II, The Death of Son, for example, there are four men on a beach: Mo, now a boat refugee, dressed in a bright red suit; Vladimir; Salman; and Axel. They seem to be friends and the

fathers of two of the boys shown fighting in a film. One of the boys is violently beating up the other, while the fathers watch, doing little to separate them. One is so badly beaten that he dies. Is this Axel and Theresas son, or the death of all sons? As the play proceeds, we enter a world of random violence on a large scale. We watch Salman and Nasty set fire to cars and stores and dance gleefully around a burning house, clearly a reference to contemporary events, but there is more to it; Salman (the new man) and Nasty (youth personified) are the future. Aprs nous le dluge, they shout, but they dont seem to realize that the world has clearly already fallen apart. Throughout the plays many disasters and tragedies, there is always the dancing and singing of Needcompanys exuberant performers and their special brand of dance with its quirky leaps, lively hops and matching songs to save the day and bring us pleasure. What does a lobster mean? the waiter shouts early on. The question is repeated in the final scene, bringing us back to that terrible moment when Axels world crashed in on him. Axel wakes up in the end. Perhaps it has all been a nightmare. Absurdist, burlesque, tragic, and puzzling, as with all nightmares? Lauwers likes to call his pieces frictional not fictional, a perfect description of The Lobster Shop, where narratives, actions, songs, dances, and speeches rub against each other, not for our comfort, but to conjure a visually stunning and captivating absurdist world for our pleasure.

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In contrast to these many unusual forays into unexpected dramatic experiments, BernardMarie Kolts Combat de ngre et de chiens has a classic structure; there is a clear storyline, the characters are recognizable and the unities of time and space are observed. Black Battle with Dogs, French director Arthur Nauzyciels adaptation of Kolts play, developed with American actors at Atlantas 7 Stages theater in 2001, was extremely well received by festival audiences and critics alike, who seemed not to mind that it was in English with supertitles. The play takes place at a construction site somewhere in West Africa. Horn, an older man, is the boss; he is about to marry Lone, a woman he met in Paris and who has just arrived at the site. One of his workers has disappeared and Cal, the foreman and a classic racist, has most likely killed him and disposed of the corpse. Alboury, the workers brother, has come to claim the body, a simple but necessary duty. In his play, Kolts refers to the building of a bridge, to the observation towers surrounding the compound, to cars and fans and other such realistic details of life on a construction site in a third-world country. Rather than reproduce these realistically, however, director Nauzyciel preferred to focus on the four characters, surrounding them instead with shadows and sounds: suggestions of bougainvillia, birds and dogs barking. The audience is separated from the stage by means of a scrim, an effective choice as it adds to the sense of the insecurity clearly felt by Horn and Cal, who seem to be the only Europeans on the construction site. Into this barely protected white world comes Alboury, a black man, a threat and a challenge to their security. The stage is dark. We hear the shouts of the guards surrounding the compound calling out to each other. As the play begins, lights come up on Horn, seated at a table, surrounded by darkness and a few flickering lights. At first we do not see the black actor seated at the edge of the curtain; we only hear his simple statement: I have come for the body. In contrast, Horn pretends cordiality; he invites the black man to come and sit down at his table and shares with him his plan to put on a display of fireworks that evening for his soon-to-be wife, Lone. Africa is a shock to a woman whos never left Paris, he confides. Alboury pushes against the scrim for a brief moment but he seems unable or unwilling to cross the barrier between them. Horn was right. We are soon made aware

of Leones discomfort in this foreign land as she wanders through the garden. It seems inevitable that she will be drawn to Alboury and he to her. Both are outsiders; both speak a foreign language: he Wolof, she German. Yet they come together for only a brief moment, a moment captured in slow movements, as if suspended in time, they barely touch, slowly turning toward each other as she gently places her head in the hollow of his neck and embraces him. But clearly they have no future together. Alboury has come only to retrieve his brothers body. Throughout the performance, one senses his presence hovering around the edges of the compound, refusing to enter Horns world. Horn is going to have to go to him if he wants to make a deal, which he does. With two bottles of whisky with which to challenge Alboury, he steps outside the compound. Alboury appears out of the darkness to face Horn. He goes toward the bottles, drinks out of one and backs off. Horn does the same and so on until Horns real motives become clear. He wants Alboury to get rid of Cal, but Alboury refuses. Horn offers him $500 but he will not budge. Alboury has not come to make a deal. The search for his brothers body is central to him, claiming it is his right and the right of his people. When this right is not honored, only tragedy can ensue. For Combat de ngre et de chiens is a modern tragedy, not unlike its Greek ancestors. It is not a play about Africa and blacks against whites. Africa is in the wings, in Koltes words. It is about human beings, isolated in a certain place that is foreign. Individuals must confront each other and they are afraid. Their journeys go beyond skin color and circumstances, and no one wins in the end. Avignons sixtieth festival was built around the theme of travel, escape and the imaginary. Traveling on miniature trains through Switzerland, through the creation of a work of art, through an imaginary Africa, or in the memories of past lives, were metaphorical. Traveling in a real truck, on the other hand, with authentic truckers from Bulgaria, was a completely different experience. Cargo Sofia-Avignon, by Stfan Kaegi (of Rimini Protokoll) offered audiences a unique travel experience on board an international freight transporter. Seated on bleachers facing a large covered window, we start off on a two-hour journey not only to learn first hand about the difficult life of the truck drivers of big international transports, but also to

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One of the stops on the long route that is Cargo Sofia-Avignon. Photo: Christophe Raynard de Lage

discover unfamiliar parts of the outskirts of Avignon. Our drivers speak only Bulgarian but thanks to Eva, their interpreter, we hear their personal stories of long months away from home and their lives on the road. Sometimes a film is shown on the covered window facing us. Clips of the streets of Sofia and the Bulgarian countryside provide background for the Bulgarian leg of our trip while a film of the history of Willi Betz and the Bulgarian state-owned SOMAT haulage accompanies the drivers narration. At other times, the curtain is rolled up and were outside of Avignon, near the railroad tracks or at a truck loading area. When the window is covered up again, we are at the border between Bulgaria and Serbia. After fifteen hours, we reach Serbia. Tomorrow we will pass Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, crossing borders

where were forced to pay bribes to the border guards, after fifty hours with no sleep. When the curtain goes up again, its the wholesale market at Chateaurenard where two thousand merchants come every morning to buy their vegetables and fruits. A local man has been waiting for us to tell us about that mornings market, about when all the tomatoes were sold and what row was reserved for the apricots. And so our journey continues, from waving at the owner of a local, familyrun hauling company, to hearing the melancholic song of a woman standing in the middle of a traffic circle with a microphone. Whatever label you give it, Cargo Sofia-Avignon is a unique theater piece: part history lesson, part documentary, part entertainment, part mobile biography, part cargo-carrying story; in all, a fascinating journey.

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Avignon OFF 2006: The State of Things before Chaos

Jean Decock What began three years ago as an angry demonstration by the intermittents du spectacle (still without any resolution in sight) brought somehow in its aftermath a reassessment of the management of Public OFF, the ever-proliferating fortyyear-old institution, with some 860 entries today. Since 2004 there have been two heavy catalogue programs and two subscription cards that give you an equal discount averaging twelve dollars per seat. After much turmoil, the internecine schism within looks more like a tug-of-war for control: rival arcane interests are at stake. There has been a regrouping around the initial local Avignon companies and directors with an administration of eight: the new Avignon Festival and Cies. It seems Public OFF is losing the battle, they have already been ousted from their privileged headquarters. From all of this, the main innovation for the visiting festivalier is the selection of twelve shows (including mime, puppetry and dance) chosen by a mysterious boardcriteria being a minimum of four thespians, with contemporary fare and performing the whole length of the Festival. The winners will receive funds which will help them to survive and provide us with some guarantee of quality. Hopefully. Beloved stage and screen actor Michel Piccoli stated rather abrasively that the followers of Vilar are in the OFF. I would agree perhaps, in that more than the IN, it focuses on stern staging and spare means. But then so much has changed in our taste or lack thereof. If theater is the mirror of society it presents in 2006 a grim landscape of our twenty-first century. Apocalypse Now Most attuned to our sinking planet, witness Urgences, a complex, energetic, chaotic construction of thirteen short scenes around the world as it is (South America, Italy, UK, US, Paris and its suburbs) in the vein of Mati Visniec: compulsive consumerism, domestic violence, dumbing down by the

Patrick Verschuerens production of Some Explicit Polaroids. Photo: courtesy Thtre phmride

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Guillame Hermiers prodution of Jeunesse. Photo: Guillame Hermier

media, dehumanization, sex as trade, prostitution and pedophilia. Written by Serge Adam, it was directed by the talented local Marie Pags in her little Ring venue with a touch of Brecht: all hands and accessories are visible on stage. It had a cast of four, including her favorite young panther Benot Thvenot. Pags plays here with a set of bright colored boxes (lit masterfully by Salieri) in which men need to store their dreams and hopes. What comes first? Society or man? The chicken or the egg? Help! The lower depths are the realm of Some Explicit Polaroids by Mark Ravenhill (of Shopping and Fucking fame), a rare event since so few AngloSaxon plays make it to Avignon, even translated into French. British despair (according to Osborn, Bond, Pinter and Kane)with pills and drugs, kidnap and ransom, strip-tease and bad boys, sex for sale and S&M playis set in 1999, a long time since the Yellow Submarine, the psychedelic dream of sexual revolution and well beyond Orwell to post-Thatcher Trainspotting. The huge set (nine by nine by six meters) consists of a blue vinyl and bare metallic rectangular scaffolding reflected in a sort of dry pool or club dance floor: stylized realism and a bad acid trip for a badly dubbed film, with a motley

team of six actors. Its party time, but in spite of Patrick Verschuerens clever staging, this is trashy Gen X in dark black and whitethe water metaphor is cold as ice! Anything goes in Olivier Pys Jeunesse, too, the only play of his published (by Actes-Sud) and not produced since he directs and performs in all of them. Py is a major writer, the Claudel of our time whose work remains untranslated into English, and his Jeunesse is difficult and challenging, a matter of Mind and Body, Pys familiar duality. And so the spirit moves around the attractive set of six participants caught in a trapthe gray plastic tubular set they assemble for themselves, dressed in green working class jumpsuits. This is a trap for two dissimilar brothers: flashy, redheaded and gay Aurlien and sexy, dark, opaque and brooding Paul (Yann Ropars), who is married to lonely Edel, the motherly figure with kids, who herself feels rejected. Fathers are absent from the stage but made to be hated. A kind of Racinian pattern emerges: the impossiblility of earthly love. Beautiful Cendres (Claire Trmelot), who looks like a Flemish naked virgin, loves Aurlien, who craves for a macho yet cute waiterthe top he longs for in an S&M bind. Longing is the metaphor herewe know what Py

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wants for his characters, what lies beyond their wanting. But Paul commits suicide and Cendres tries a convent, although not for long. What is the emerald stone they are searching for? Kudos to director Guillaume Hermier and his Compagnie Pandor under the wing of Py himself. Lost Generations: Within a Social Context or Without Credit must be given for determination and grit even if success is relative. Thtre du Fracas provides fourteen bold and daring thespians for Les Egars (The Wanderers), written and directed by Come de Bellescize. The play is set in Calais on the French side of the Channel; they think life will be better on the other British side, possibly through the Eurostar tunnel. Can Eliza, a French girl, and Ene, an illegal immigrant, become a couple? She is a volunteer social worker trying to escape her pimp brother Pygmalion; he is stranded with a band of friends. Layers of references go from Virgils epic The Aeneid to the Stangate Refugee Camp, Ariane Mnouchkines Le Dernier Caravansrail (Odysses), and to Franois Dupeyrons novel and film Ingulzi (England in alien). They all speak French, alas. Staging is filmic with cello and alto punctuation by Yannick Paget, with comic relief making fun of the stressed female bank manager who washes her hands of it all (the talented Eleonore Simon is a hoot): Je reprsente la Banque, je ne la suis pas. There is however little redeeming value in Les Abms (The Damaged) by Michael Cohen, directed by Alexandra Chouraqui for Compagnie Uraken: a play about the love and life problems of two little poor and horny squatting punk couples one frenetic, the other slo-mo. Supported with pulsating light, glaring punk rock and cardboard furniture, the couples exchange clichs about love straight out of teen magazines, and vacuously argue to bide time. A perplexing endeavour: De nos jours les Saintes Vierges ne versent plus de larmes (Nowadays, Virgin Marys dont Shed a Tear Anymore) by Thtre Machine directed by Celine Masso was inspired by two plays by Pasolini: Porcherie (Porcile/Pigsty), in which a father loses his son, and Affabulazione, in which a son seeks his father. Perhaps the open air venuea grass enclosure between two apartment buildings, with wallpa-

per panels suggesting the bourgeoisieand the disastrous lighting did not help this conceptual gizmo with non-stop logorrhea. Pasolini deserves better. Returning to a more upbeat note, its a joy to come back to the red and black nightmare, accompanied by some Prokofievthe sound and fury of Ionescos last play Macbett as directed by talented Jrmie Lecouet, who makes violence funas the writer would have wanted. Superb in musical elocution, slowing and accelerating the rhythm and motionperhaps the only difference between tragedy and farce. A great show with perfect pace and timing by Compagnie des Dramaticules. Les Croiss (Crusaders) by Marcel Cremer, an hilarious offering, was also a bit of a misnomer. There were actually six crusades in the span of 200 years way back in the Middle Ages, all in the name of God, offering crusaders a seat in Heaven plus extra mercenary bonuses, accompanied by famine, epidemics, and the extermination of whomever we found heretic. So goes history and the last and next crusade is now. We enter a hospice where six traumatized and maimed heroes are presently in care of three lively Catholic sisters and their various therapies (crying game, rubber band faces, clapping and singing). This is a prankish varsity parade where fun is had by alland usuntil the oversized photos of exploded faces of World War become unbearable. It is food for thought against all kind of terrorismincluding Eastern but mainly Western. Les Croiss was performed by Compagnie Agora, which is from the Germanspeaking border of Belgium, but they perform in French. Tongue-in cheek, totally visual sans text: Strike (subtitled: Who wins? the chicken or the grain?) comes with the double-entendre of the title. Waiting in the Gare du Nord, where the next Eurotrain is delayed because of social disturbances typical of France, seven characters experience a whole gamut of conflicting attitudes. The perspectives are mainly Western but also racial since there are also a brother and sister who are obviously illegal aliens. Tension, quibbling, fighting, indifference, compromise, and some compassionjust for awhile until they resume their journey, leaving behind the Muslim couple. The production is an homage to Jacques Tati. Bravo! to Compagnie Fiat Lux, which is from Brittany and is under the guidance of Didier Guyon.

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Didier Guyons production of Strike. Photo: Manuel Pascual

From the Closet to the Stage Let us salute those who have the chutzpah and courage to lay bare explicitly secret and unspoken taboos and expressions of impossible love. Incest is the key to Marguerite Durass Agatha (1981), suggested yet never mentioned: the young handsome couple we see on a round platform floating like a raft meet for the last time before their lives drift apart. This is a deviant union; it happened, but it is cursed. The staging is static: they stand in their chic white garments and will later strip for sunbathing, revealing their slim perfect bodies like models for a photo shoot. I was turned off by their stylized bitchiness and upper class cool, so far removed from this fragment of Durass life. Maybe Im wrong but there is a dangerous assumption in thinking Durass texts are easy to perform. The trap is they require an ever so delicate balance easy to overturn towards entropy, affectation and parody. Director Jacques Kraemer did not avoid that. Duras did in her film version with a monotone reading while the camera strolls in an empty villa by the sea. You never see him, the object of female desire. Aptly subtitled Les lectures illimites. La Maladie de la Mort (1982) is a fiftyminute soliloquy about a man who hires a woman for three days in a hotel room to find out whether he is capable of loving, in fact, a female body. My interpretation of the ambiguous play: the sickness referred to is homosexuality as a sterile curse, the impossibility of sharing, of giving life. Maybe prosecutor Duras is resting her case against Yann

Andrea, her companion at the end. Other various interpretations are possible; I take the text at face value. Here we see a young man (Fabien Dehasseler) dressed in white again. Director Monica Gomes, for her own Labora-Vertigo Co, encouraged by Duras, trumps a second degree version. Who is the YOU addressed in the text? The man we hear is the Narrator split from the man we see, the bed and sheet and the naked lady are evacuated in a rear video projection. Gomes, a Belgian, also adds some irrelevant and goofy McGuffins inspired by Magritte. On the other hand, one of the most satisfying pieces was the adaptation of Zweigs novella La Confusion des Sentiments (Verwirrung der Gefhle1926) by Virginie Fouchault and Jack Percher for Thtre dAir, directed with exquisite sensitivity. The FestSchrift homage to an old (Austrian?) professor brings raises the question, Is this my Life? and forces him to remember the utter fascination he had as a young student for his own English Literature professor, who was intoxicated by the madness of the Elizabethan period. Difficult to succeed in materializing on stage, the play is not a coming-out, but the self-inflicted repression of emotions in the inner closet of his own mind. Ronald does not understand what is obvious to all including the professors wife who is the necessary foil and enabler. The climax is the revelation that the charismatic mentor is also attached to his disciple, an impossible liaison at the time for both: the confession is sealed with a kiss. The delicate staging shows the old man watching himself as a

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young, sensitive, confused lad. A lot is also conhigh heels was only mildly amusing, if at all. veyed by lighting, set and actingthere is a lot of Does Genet belong here? Reliable Alain prowling, hiding and spying around panels and Timar at Thtre des Halles gave us yet another propanes of glass. This engrossing triangular duction of Les Bonnes: once more we delve in the German/English affair is of course translated in ritualistic ceremony (Chabrols title), confusing as a French. The real challenge is to incarnate the intelRubiks Cube. Claire and Solange, the two maids, lectual brilliance of the Masters teaching, which plan to poison the tea of Madame. They begin by was done by using excerpts from Zweigs own switching their identity. Who is who? Then men research and writing (for Mary Stuart). are away, out of reachmonsieur or the milkman In Le Roi Lune (The Moon King), the dark serve as deus ex-machina. Having failed, they carry side of the ideal Sun King Louis XIV, you are inviton to the endmurder must take place. Who is the ed by Belgian author Thierry Dubroux to a dinner at strongest? The schizo lesbian sisters union is the table of Ludwig II. An insomniac threesome doomed: filth cannot not love filth. The unusual set with a sinister Government Representative and a by Stanislas Pierre is like a translucent jewelers handsome tall companion embodies the sexual case made of a sliding door encased by jungle vegdesire of his whole life: Beauty and Betrayal in one etation. There are at times some projections man. A final supper as he has just learned the death enhancing the deadly game. The music is mellow of his beloved Wagner suggests an improvised and jazz and fascination is the name of Madames red imaginary trial where he will assume the role of dressbut kindness is returned with hate. Timar prosecutor for the state against his lover as the King managed to bring out the very best from his three and the Minister as attorney for the defense. With actresses, especially Odile Grosset-Grange (who the apt staging by Frdric Dussenne we are far was Vinavers Nina last year ). from Visconti but the consummate thespian Julien Roy carries on with frankness the expos of what Dancing with Actors: The Body Electric Bavaria considers as reprehensible: sodomy with another man, the primacy of art over war, a concern If dance is only ten percent of the total for his people, contempt for the governmentand Avignon-OFF output it can certainly deliver intense the dream of those castles on the hill. The very stigmatism that will turn him into a legend is that the virgin king was a sodomite and there was nothing mad about him. He will be found in 60 centimeters of water the next morning. The late Copi (aka Raoul Dumonte), an Argentinian in Paris, writer and performer of camp, who died in 1987, is given a tribute in the IN as well in LHomosexuel ou la difficult de sexprimer (The Tongue-Tied Homo). We are in Siberia; the icebox center stage and handfuls of confetti suggest cold and snow. There are four characters but what are they playing? Mother and daughter, piano teacher and student eloping from the USSR to China? Director Aurelien Chaussade, for Cies Jakart and Mugiscu, decided to subvert the pattern of men in drag into female actors as men, a bit of a confusing gender-bending. In spite of a brilliant quartet of actresses, clever inventiveness and scatological commedia dellarte, this Fabien Dehasseler in Monica Gomes production of La Maladie de la Mort. Desire in a Cold Climate in fur coats and
Photo: Monica Gomes

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pleasure. In fact some of the best altogether. This years outstanding little gem was a multi media A propos de Butterflyit takes only forty minutes for Juan Besprosvany, a Mexican from Brussels and Bjart, to narrate Puccinis opera while raising a few questions about the American presence in Japan. Three performers dance in a black box: the young, wide-eyed, dashing, and Black Lieutenant Pinkerton (Jip), the sublime Daniela Luca, and a porcelain doll manipulated and levitated by Thierry Bastin, while the divine Callas unravels her heart-rending arias. This is interspersed with Barbie and Ken videos, opinion interviews about what people think of occupation by any country, and its subsequent flowering of kamikaze. Why and what? Are you ready to die for a cause? Besprosvany takes on Bush, 9/11, and Iraqand his own doubts about what he is doing. Totally original, funny yet poignant; one only hopes it will travel widelyand why not to New York? Inspired by two works by Paul Klee from Bern, which she explores in blown up details, Annick Ptz, from Luxemburg, gives us Wachstum und Verzweigung (Growing and Ramification), an exquisite Zen piece for two female dancers and one

percussion musician, Nicolas Lelivre. We can learn, says Klee, from the life of plantsfrom point to line to movement to surface to space, from etchings to colorhow the human and the vegetal transfer to abstract painting. THEC blends a techno-video dimension with live performers: here two male actors and six female dancers in DJ Don Juan form a montage around the Myth. Antoine Lemaires choreography includes perpetual motion, dynamic energy, stunning moveable handheld panels for shadows, and video projection. This is carousel, cavalcade, waltzing ballet of seduction, and hide and seek for the two faces of Don Juan: scoundrel and free thinker. The 1003 willing victims are first forsaken, later vindictive and devouring. The text is is by Molire and Laclos, Sand, Zweig and Berkoff as well, with some Bach and Mozart. Dazzling. Carnets de Bord (Ships Log) is by choreographer Eric Laguet and his multi-cultural, -racial and -ethnic cast gathered during his tour from New Zealand and Australia to La Runion, the island in the Indian Ocean. He wanted to find out about his dancershow they relate to family, others, friends. The women relate to mother and life, men much

Alain Timars production of Les Bonnes. Photo: Valrie Suau

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more secretively to fathers and death. Two segregated triosmasculine and feminineare all in motion without words. There is nothing elitist, just warmth and lovability; you want to meet and touch themparticularly striking is Robin Dangermans from New Zealand and the French Nelly Roman. Plaisirs Chorgraphiques by Franois Veyrunes Compagnie 47-49 invites us to come, watch the result of their work and see them dancehow they render the invisible palpable: two couples in chase and escape, rebellion, dominance and submission, forever. And they display how it is possible to be quite elegant and attractive with crutches through the work of their marvelous Black handicapped dancer. Taking Refuge in Classical Theatre? At the beginning was Sophocles and the origin of our theater of words where narration replaces action. Co Demedocos, started initially from the Sorbonne, presents Antigone under the curse of Oedipuss original sin, as translated and directed by Philippe Brunet, a specialist in Greek philology who mixes French with sequences in Greek metrical beat and scansion. It is a kind of ritual event: Antigone, the virgin surrounded by chanting priests, citizens and a cappella chorus wearing open mouthed masks, screaming silently. Due to an accident Antigone and Creon were both played by women. A totally feminist version of Antigone by Cie Faim Rouge, adapted by Belgian author and psychiatrist Henry Bauchau with excerpts from the last novel of his Mediterranean trilogy, sets the play on a tiny intimate stage like a red womba text for two wondrous actresses. Laure Valles is the small dark Antigone entrapped, drawing ever smaller circles of white dust; Pauline Hornez, blonde and tall, is the rest of the cast. Musical accompaniment on the flute is provided by Matteo de Bellis. Director Catherine Saunie creates an entrancing mood, unfortunately overrated: Bauchau has little to add woman is light, rebellion and hope. We knew that. From one curse to another: Racines Andromaque, in an MG production invited by Le Chne Noir, displays the wretched unrequited pursuit: Pylade loves Oreste who loves Hermione who loves Pyrrhus who is in love with Andromache,

La Confusion des Sentiments, directed by Virginie Fouchault. Photo: Thtre dAir

Hectors widow. As directed by Thomas Le Douarec we witness an angry bunch possessed by hatred and revenge. Greeks and Trojans wear the same red gloves and white mantles stained with blood. The two barking women are cold vamps. The histrionics are out of control. Vie de Monsieur Molire is really a reading by four (mugging) actors of the first ten chapters of Mikhael Boulgakovs Romanvrai, a first person biography about the obstacles and problems of an author under a monarch or a Soviet dictator. But Jean Baptiste Poquelin will survive to become Molire. Some Albinoni and Arvo Part helped. Better run to his Georges Dandin, about the gentle, endearing and pathetic cuckold and farmer (Arnaud Troalic), here in modern garb with woolen knit cap, surrounded by conniving provincial aristocrats, his wife, her parents and her paramour, who play a cruel comedy of manners and greed. The production displays inventive collective staging; there is an open air arena emphasizing levels, gangways and mirador towers. Since Molire suggested suicide by drowning at the end what we hear here are two gunshots in the dark, then a third

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one. Gelas gave us a somber and bland Musset with On ne badine pas avec lAmour (Dont Fiddle with Love), sure to pack them in. The immortal drama came to us again with a bland and lackluster cast and a geometric set la Robert Wilson in three moving elements on wheels and with a mellow jazz background. Leading man in residence Damien Remy plays Perdican but the two lovely actresses fare well. Alice Belaida was Mireille last year, Camille Cazar gets better in the second half. Why not save time and see the anthology of love with LAttrape Thtre in Tout le Monde court aprs (We All Want It) by Christophe Thiry. From love at first sight to incompatibility: they say passion is set to last three years. We start with Romeo and Juliet on seesaw and trapeze and quickly move on to variations on famous characters of French theatre (Musset, Corneille, Racine, Rostand) through the ages, seventeenth century to the present, presented by a group of seven talented thespians and acrobats: culture, classes, way of life, the pill, and the internet. Only the gross vulgarity is a deterrent towards the end and our times. Can love and marriage agree? All of literature says NO. Duo = Duel Encounters Cosmtique de lEnnemi (Enemy with Good Manners) is one of the best of Amlie Nothombs short brilliant novels; she is a Belgian in Paris with a worldwide background and a rising notoriety due to her raspy sense of humor. Two guys are waiting in an airport for a delayed plane: one is a laptop business-class type with a suit and tie; the other strikes you as a talkative con-artist who happens to be Dutch, maybe because of Jansenius and Spinoza. Reluctant small talk becomes casual probing and soul-searching about religion and guilt, love with some deviant neuroses, and a touch of Escher and Borges. You guessed it: the enemy is within, nothing is haphazard nor clichd, and the end is brutal. Jan Luc Levasseur plays and directs for Co Les Dieux Terribles. The teaming is perfect: could there possibly be a code between victim and perpetrator as accomplices? Totally different yet germane is Eloge de la Faiblesse (In Praise of the Weak) adapted by Charles Tordjman (who directs) from Swiss philosopher Alexandre Jollien who deceptively named his two young characters Alexandre and Socratesdont expect Colin Farrell. Socratic dia-

logue is about pain and suffering, how to deal with cruelty and evil: not by retreating or escaping but through learning more by lightness of being like a child, an old man, a disabled person, an animal. Hence the set by Franois Rodison for VidyLausanne: a tight place with cardboard walls a la Gehry lit by blue moonlight. Alexandre (Yves Jenny) is naked, wrapped in a sheet and moves like a lizard or a weighless amoeba. Socrates (Robert Bouvier) seems locked outside behind a Venitian blind. Suffering gives life meaning. You may not agree. At the entrance of a girls high school, two men wait on a bench in trench coats without trousers: are they flashers in competition or waiting to throw a bomb on a passing motorcade? As Sigmund and Karl get to know each other it seems they are actually afraid of more than fear itself repression, censorship, torture. La secrte Obscenit de tous les Jours (Everydays Hidden Obscenity), by Marco Antonio de la Parra, is a metaphor for living in Chile under the military dictatorship of Pinochet, and how it could go on for 25 years: only through cowardice, collaboration, and the complicity of a middle-class looking after its own interests. When words are useless, then use violence. The play is quite stimulating, showing how the main ideologies of our century can be distorted. Thanks to Thierry Mercier for Co Chrysalide for sharing this stimulating play; unfortunately his direction was not up to par. Watch for Philippe Blasband, a Jewish Iranian from Brussels: a young and prolific writer of novels, script, films, and here theatre. It is difficult to pinpoint Les Tmoins (Witnesses): two actors only (Benot Verhaert and Aylin Yay) embody a whole remote village in the Ardennes in this tale about a traveling judge not really welcomed by the locals, investigating three un/related cases: a fence, the brewing of a psychedelic blue beer and the rape and murder of several children. Cie Audience presents a production with a gripping murky mood and futuristic, layered wooly brown costumes, with superb lighting on a trail of sand and gravel. This must be Belgiumrecently and nationally traumatized by the trial of Dutroux, a notorious pedophile responsible for the death by starvation of two girls while two survived. Delving now into the combat zone of intimate relationshipa claustrophobic world without children. Why is it we want to run away? Clic Clac (Snap), written by Gil Coudere,

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Yves Jenny as Alexandre and Robert Bouvier as Socrates in Charles Tordjmans production of Eloge de la Faiblesse. Photo: Vincent Tordiman

uses a glamorous couple to examine whats inside cool beautiful people. He is a photographer and wannabe filmmaker, drop-dead handsome and laid back (Guillaume Barbot has a future already), shes a model and aspiring actress trying to stay interesting and avoid boredom by being sourly aggressive. They come and going out of his very reddish Paris studio: she leaves and comes back and leaves again; theyre unhappy together except when naked in bed. Provincial French life, petite bourgeoisie, routine and inertia, boredom and hushed but acrimonious frustration in a 20-year-old satiated marriage may become hilarious. Louis Calaferte and his two-character pinkish Intimate Plays is back: LAquarium directed by Thomas Gaubiac for Thtre du Dtour, and Les Miettes (Crumbs) by Caroline Bouffard and Sophie Neuman. These people are cozy, comfortable, eating and drinking coffeeclose the door if you hear something rumble, we are safe inside. Are we like that? We hit bottom with Israeli Hanockh Levin: marriage as Une laborieuse Entreprise. With a smothering dose of the vilest grossness, this is surely the worst and most revolting production this year. J.P. Berthomieu directed for Thtre des Agits, surprisingly invited by Timar. What happened to LUV? There is no possibility of happiness here. Like a dead fish or a puddle of mudare we supposed to laugh?

Solo Performancesa selective choice since there are too many On a secluded porch in a decrepit family house in Avignon, night is falling, in the dusk a Caravaggio-like chiaroscuro, some candles: we are in Bordeaux in 1828. The old man who rambles and mutters is Francesco de Goya at eighty-four. There are two female silhouettes: his caretaker and companion with his small daughter. He is also waiting for his grandchild Marino; is he still alive? He will never see him. There is talk of leavingtrunks, boxes, a birdcagethis soliloquy is the last two hours of his own life. Solo Goya, autorittrato con nino, Burdeos is a powerful mood piece (just a few guitar and piano mesures), displaying entropy, impotence, paralysis, deafness, and blindness. Maybe author Jean Louis Manoury and young director Thibaut Wenger saw the Carlos Saura film (1988) but anyway this is the perfect symbiosis of subject, location, lighting and a superb actor: Jean Pierre Bast. Surely one of the highlights of this year. Another is the hidden side of Calaferte, the Frenchman from Torino, from his Thtre Baroque: Clotilde du Nord is a blonde beauty (Claire Bassez) who was swept by a sleazy French sentimental loseror so it seems at first. One morning she wakes up into a bad dream as he ever

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so gently unveils his plan for her and takes her for all she has to give. He needs her body to survive financially. The unbearable monologue of a pimp, as she remains silent, loving, and alas, submissive. Philippe Risler is the non-stop talker, directed by Alain Paris for Co La Belle Idee. The production is thoroughly revolting as you watch in disbelief. Devastating. To end on a more uplifting spiritual note (there were three versions of Saint Francis of Assisi) I chose the Franois dAssise by Joseph Delteil, who wanted us to meet the man not the saint: he who talks to Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and also the Earth, and the animals and in praise of the body. This St. Francis is not so Catholica Ghandi of sorts against the state of the world: capitalism, pol-

lution, globalization. Delteils style is overwhelmingly rich, bursting with images and metaphors: a paean to nature and joy as delivered by Robert Bouvier directed by Adel Karim for Vidy-Lausanne. St. Francis is a winning adolescent naif. Maybe we can allagnostic or notbecome Francis. Is there anything anywhere equal to the creative energy and expectations displayed in Avignon for three weeks? It is a celebration of youth and performance. The average age in the streets must be twenty-something. They vie for your attention, beating the heat, hoping their show will be noticedbecause lest we forget, this is also a market. Hope must be part of the love of theatre as vocation, ritual or addiction. Applause.

Robert Bouvier as Saint Francis of Assisi in Adel Karims production of Franois d'Assise. Photo: Mario del Curto

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Paris Theatre, Spring and Summer 2006

Barry Daniels As in the past, Ive divided this report into categories: classic, modern and contemporary. For the first time, the category of classic works is rather slight, and, also for the first time, that of contemporary work is the largest group. Classic Texts The Odon-Thtre de lEurope has been beautifully restored. It reopened in April with a production of Hamlet (A Dream), adapted from Shakespeare by the theatres artistic director, Georges Lavaudant. Unlike last falls Rehearsal: Hamlet, an engaging exploration of the work by the Brazilian troupe Cia dos Atores (Company of Actors), this production displayed the egomania of its director. It consisted mostly of a series of visual images. The only role of any substance was the title character, admirably performed by Ariel Garcia Valdez. The rest of the cast were simply pawns in Lavaudants play of images. The result was slight and mercifully brief. Jean-Pierre Vergiers costumes were handsome and the lighting, designed by Lavaudant, was superb. The images were often ravishing, but they seemed to exist only for themselves. They never illuminated the text, which was, in fact, the least important aspect of this production. Shakespeares poem The Rape of Lucrece was adapted and staged by Marie-Louise Bischofberger in the small theatre at MC93Bobigny; the production is also scheduled to tour in France in October and November. Bischofberger used Yves Bonnefoys excellent translation of the poem. She cut, however, many of the lyrical passages to focus on the passages of dialogue or monologue. Stripped of its poetic effects the text verged on melodrama, and Bischofberger allowed her two actors, Rachida Brakni (Lucretia) and Pascal Bongard (Tarquin, the Nurse, and Collatin) to emote outrageously. Raymond Couvreu designed the raked stage, which was made of wooden planks with a square platform in the center that was on a pivot and could be moved forwardit served as the bed in some scenes. Pieces of armor and a sword were scattered about the stage. A metal gym locker was placed stage left and was used for costume changes. Bischofberger designed the costumes, which were chic rather than effective. Brakni started the evening in an elaborate white gown made of bands of cloth wrapped around her to create a bodice with larger bands of cloth layered to create a long skirt.

Rachida Brakni and Pascal Bongard in Marie-Louise Bischofburgers production of Shakespeares The Rape of Lucrece. Photo: Pascal Gely

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Tarquin gradually unwrapped the cloth bands during the rape scene; an effect that seemed contrived and proved to be distracting. After the rape Lucretia had three costume changes for reasons that were unclear; perhaps the director, failing to find dramatic interest, hoped that visual variety would suffice. Bongard wore a black suit, black shirt and tie, to which he added the arm of a suit of armor while performing Tarquin. For the role of the Nurse, he wore a grey dress with padded breasts over the suit. Bischofberger began the piece with a prologue in which Bongard proposed to recite to Brakni the tale of Lucretia. Such a set-up made me think that the music stands placed downstage left and right would be used for the reading of narrative passages of the poem. They were only used twice, however, first when Bongard started the recitation and later when Lucretia described the painting of the Fall of Troy. Unfortunately Bischofbergers approach looked too much like a spread for a fashion magazine. Stripped of the richness of the poetry, the piece became a vehicle for the display of the actors technical skills. Brakni, who was a pensionnaire at the Comdie-Franaise from 2001 to 2004, is well known for her work in film. She is a beautiful young woman with a lovely voice, but I found her work here lacking in depth. She spoke the verse well, but she didnt bring a spark of life to the character. I found Bongard more interesting in the several roles he played. Modern Works The revival at the Comdie-Franaise of Edmond Rostands poetic melodrama Cyrano de Bergerac has been a great popular success in Denis Podalyds imaginativeif not always successful staging. I must say, however, that despite Podalyds intelligent work, I am not really enamored of the play. Actor Eric Ruf, who trained as a designer, provided Podalyds with an interesting set whose predominant image, except in Act IV, was of the backstage of the theatre. Act I was literally placed backstage. Various units were made up of the back of scenic flats and the stage was perceived as being offstage left. A TV monitor placed above the set showed the audience when appropriate. Podalyds updated references to members of the audience to well known figures in modern French Theatre. There was so much hustle and bustle in this set that

it became hard to follow the action. For Act II, a large rectangular table occupied the width of the stage, above which hung a variety of copper pots. The Garden of Act III had a house with balcony stage left and a sort of alcove upstage right. Both were made of theatrical flats whose backs faced out. For the love scene between Roxane and Christian, the scenery was pushed back and Roxane was suspended in space against a blue drop. This striking effect was rather lovely and seemed in line with the flights of language. For Act IV, Ruf placed a pile of rubble center stage behind which was a drop depicting a blue sky. For the final Act flats reversed across the back of the stage created the effect of the walls of the convent. Christian LaCroix provided suitably extravagant period costumes mixing seventeenth century pieces with some references to the theatre of the nineteenth century. The cast was genuinely excellent. Michel Vuillermoz has been justly praised as a Cyrano of note, Eric Ruf had great charm as Christian, and Francoise Gaillard captured the wit and preciosity of Roxane nicely, finding the correct gravity for the final Act. Andrzej Seweryn managed to downplay the obvious villainy of de Guiche. Denis Podalyds is a distinguished actor in the troupe and this was his first attempt at directing. His Cyrano overflowed with ideas; some worked and some didnt. The first Act was the least effective because of his failure to keep the main action clear; it was, however, an interesting evocation of life backstage. In Act III he included a pantomime scene by an actor dressed as a turn of the nineteenth century clown. This action, which played through the first part of the Act, seemed distracting. But, on the whole, the production succeeded and entertained. Claude Stratzs production of Pirandellos Cap and Bells at the Vieux-Colombier Theatre (Comdie-Franaise) was so successful last season that it was brought back this spring for an additional run. Set in a provincial Sicilian town, it tells the story of the insanely jealous Beatrice Fiorica, who suspects her husband of having an affair with the wife of his office manager Ciampa. Hoping to capture the illicit couple en flagrante, she sends Ciampa on an errand in another town. Although Beatrice wants to provoke a scandal, her mother, brother, and the local police commissioner conspire against her and eventually succeed in convincing her she is insane and needs to be committed to an institution. The play is a dark and cruel comedy that satirizes provincial attitudes.

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Pirandellos Cap and Bells, directed by Claude Stratz. Photo: Ramon Senera

Stratzs production was quite handsome with an elaborate set by Jean-Marc Stehle representing the drawing room of an affluent Sicilian family, draped with carved wooden festoons imitating cloth. Maitza Gligo and Devi Ghilardi provided beautiful period (1916) costumes. The central role in the play is that of Ciampa who is as jealous of his wife as Beatrice is of her husband. Alain Pralon, in this role, gave a riveting performance. In the final scenes of the play he became a madman whose honor could be saved only if Beatrice were to be found to be insane. Muriel Mayette was quite good as Beatrice, whose jealousy is pathological, but whose desire to be free is quite reasonable. Her mother and her brother, who represent bourgeois respectability, were well portrayed by Dominique Constanza and Jrme Poulty. Christian Cloarec was especially amusing as the police commissioner who is more concerned with the familys honor than with real justice. Eduardo De Filippos The Art of Comedy is an artfully constructed farce that was written in 1964. The play is set in a provincial Italian town, whose new government prefect has just arrived and is reviewing the schedule of appointments his assistant had prepared for him. A local theatre director, not on the list, has been waiting since dawn to see him, and he agrees to the meeting. There ensues a long scene in which the two men debate the function of theatre: the prefect argues that theatre exists sim-

ply for amusement; the theatre director, although trying to be obsequious, favors a varied classical repertoire. After the heated debate, the theatre director explains the reason for his visit. His traveling stage and props have been destroyed in a fire, and he is preparing a benefit performance. If the prefect will agree to attend, he will be assured of a full house. The prefect refuses, but offers him some state funding for transportation. Paperwork gets jumbled and when the theatre director leaves he has with him the prefects appointment schedule. What follows is the prefects series of appointments with residents so bizarre that he is convinced they are the theatre directors actors playing a horrible trick on him. He first sees a doctor who is upset that a religious shrine receives more credit for curing ills than his own very real efforts. Next is a priest at war with an unwed pregnant girl he has tried to help. He is followed by an hysterical school teacher, who is convinced she has killed a boy whose parents are with her and deny that the boy was in school that day. The final appointment is with a pharmacist who has threatened to take an overdose of arsenic if he is not received by the prefect. After a lazzo involving the prefects pulling at what he thinks is the mans false beard, the pharmacist dies. His death reveals the fact that the people the prefect has seen were not actors. Throughout this action, the stage director, disguised as an old woman, has been watching the events.

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Eduardo De Filippos farce The Art of Comedy, directed and designed by Marie Vayssire. Photo: Brigitte Enguerand

The wonderfully funny production of this play at the Thtre de la Bastille was directed and designed by Marie Vayssire. Her set was a somewhat dilapidated wall of what was doubtless a very grand office in a municipal building. It was placed at the back of the stage for the first part of the play, then moved to the stage right wall and finally placed across the stage towards the front. This varied the picture nicely. A desk and a few chairs were the main props. Some paintings were stacked up against the stage house wall, stage left. Vayssires approach to play was broad and perfectly suited to the farcical content of the work. She allowed the actors to develop extended physical lazzi. The actors, often playing several parts, were excellent. Pit Goedert played the theatre director combining obsequiousness with high principals. His pantomime of watching the action in disguise as an old woman was inspired. Miloud Khtib captured perfectly the self-importance of a petty bureaucrat in the role of the prefect. Christian Esnay was amusing as the increasingly hysterical doctor, and Agns Rgalo provoked much laughter as the unhinged school teacher. In the mid-1950s Jean Genet wrote a fascinating screenplay, The Penal Colony. In 1958, he began reworking this material as a play. The scenario and some fragments of the play were pub-

lished posthumously in 1994. A fuller version of the play was included in the Plade edition of Genets complete works. Last season Antoine Bourseiller staged a production of the play in Nice. This production was performed at the Athne Theatre in Paris in April and May. Im sorry to report that Bourseiller has not succeeded in making the unfinished work dramatically viable. The production lacked the sweaty sensuality indicated in the screenplay. I also felt that in the play the relationships between the inmates are less successfully developed than in the screenplay. A major problem of the production was that the actors playing the inmates in faded red striped uniforms (the costumes were designed by Natalie Braud) looked more like actors than a motley group of prisoners in the middle of a torrid desert. One never sensed their deprivation. Among the most successful scenes were those involving the Director (Dsir Saorin), the Priest (Ronan Beauperin) and the Assistant Director Marchetti (Paolo Correia), a comic trio of queens delightfully mocked by Genet. Correia was especially good in the scene where he takes the new inmate Forlano (Alexandre Ruby) to his cell, alternately taunting and caressing him. Alexandre de Dardels set was a huge moveable wall with small openings in it at various

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levels. Inmates were placed in these openings which became cells in some scenes. Three black guards with a penchant for wearing extravagant jewelry were often placed as sentinels on the top of this wall. Their African songs served as background music for the production. Hanokh Levin was a prolific Israeli playwright who died in 1999 at the age of 56. His play The Child Dreams (1993) has been given a fine production by the Thtre national de Strasbourg, which was performed at the Thtre de la Colline in Paris this spring. The play is divided into four parts. It begins with a mother and father cradling their sleeping child. In the first part, The Father, soldiers enter the room and the child witnesses the execution of his father. In the second part, The Mother, mother and child make an attempt to flee their war-torn country. The ships captain refuses to allow the child to board. He relents when the mother agrees to have sex with him. In the third part, The Child, the ships passengers are refused refuge in port where the ship has docked. The governor and his wife see the child and offer to allow him to stay but he refuses to leave his mother. In the final scene, The Messiah, the mother brings her dead child to the common grave of children, and he joins the world of the dead.

Director Stphane Braunschweig staged the play with great simplicity. He also designed the set, which consisted of bare walls and doors for the first part, a white wall placed diagonally to represent the ship in parts two and three, and for the final part, a night blue sky studded with stars. Thibault Vancraenenbroeks costumes were modern without denoting a specific period. In the final part he dressed the dead children, played by adult actors, in brightly colored tee shirts. Braunschweig used an adult actor to speak the part of the child. Thierry Paret handled this difficult task with great skill, and Hlne Schwaller played the mother with sensitivity. Each of the ten other actors excellently handled a number of secondary roles. Levins text is compact and poetic, both horrifying and, in the final part, oddly beautiful. Contemporary Plays Sophie Kovalevskaia was a distinguished mathematician, born in 1850. She was associated with the nihilist radicals in Russia and volunteered as a nurse during the Paris Commune in 1870. After completing her doctorate in mathematics at Gottingen in 1874, she married a noted paleontologist, Vladimir Kovaleski. She was appointed to a

Genets The Penal Colony, directed by Antoine Bourseiller. Photo: Brigitte Enguerand

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post at the University of Stockholm in 1883, and in 1889, became the first woman to be appointed to a chair there. She was awarded the Prix Bordin by the Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1888. Her novel The Nihilist was published after her early death in 1891. Kovalevskaia is the subject of a performance piece by Jean-Francois Peyret and Luc Steels, The Case of Sophie K, which premiered in Avignon last summer and was performed in the small theatre at the Thtre national de Chaillot in Paris. Peyret, co-author and director of the piece, has specialized in creating works based on material that explores connections between art and science. Although Peyrets aims are commendable, The Case of Sophie K managed to drain all interest out of his subject. Had I not read the biographical material in the press packet and a brochure about Kovalevskaia published in conjunction with the performances, I would have been at a complete loss to understand what was happening on the stage. Peyret made a collage of material taken from his subjects letters and published work, which he staged within the conventions of performance art.

Nicky Rietis set consisted of large projection screens placed across the rear of the stage, above a technicians work table stage left, and forming a wall stage right. Downstage left and right there were two video monitors. Upstage of the monitor stage right there were a grand piano and a synthesizer. Stage left there was a sofa. Placed against the upstage screen was a makeup table and there was a video camera on a stand placed center stage. Three women (Olga Kokorina, Ellen Lowenstein and Nathalie Richard) performed the title role, and all the male characters were performed by Etienne Oumedjkane. Alexandros Markeas performed his score at the piano or synthesizer, combining classical music with electronic effects. A technician who cued the various projections worked at the table stage left. Another technician shot live material that was later projected on the screens or monitors. Cissou Winlings attractive costumes mixed period and contemporary clothing; she used fabric that was painted or dyed in abstract geometric patterns to create a highly stylized effect. Unfortunately Peyret and Steels did not succeed in making their text coherent or interesting.

Stphane Braunschweigs production of Hanokh Levins The Child Dreams. Photo: Brigitte Enguerand

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The Case of Sophie K, created by Jean-Francois Peyret and Luc Steels. Photo: Pascal Gely

Visual effect seemed more important than the ideas under consideration. Central concepts like mathematics represents a total separation from the world of the senses, or that mathematics is like poetry were stated but never explored. Although Sophie Kovalevskaias life was fascinating, on stage it was reduced to a series of pretentious and tedious fragments which were accompanied by a dazzling display of technology. I find it difficult to say much about Serge Valletis Pub, staged by Michel Didym on the main stage at the Thtre national de la Colline. Program notes outline the plays action: Mr. Globul, manager of a pub, inadvertently kills with a single blow the redoubtable Clarb Brentanos. He is thus promoted to the head of station seven. He finds himself implicated in a worldwide uprising. After a long flight through the horrors of war and having lost everything, he returns to the pub. But during his absence his wife and associate, Lydia, has ceded the enterprise to a collective. There is only one position open, that of a creator of moods. In effect, a clown. Ok, why not! The play in four parts was performed without intermission and lasted two and a half hours. Although it followed the above outline, it made very

little sense. Neither the action nor the characters were interesting. The company of 20 actors, led by the gifted comic Herv Pierre in the role of Globul, worked hard to try to bring the piece to life. Valre Novarina is one the most successful playwrights currently producing in France. A testimony of this success is the entry into the repertoire of the Comdie-Franaise of Furious Space, a play created 1991. I have never much liked Novarinas work and this production, staged by the author, did not change my opinion that his writing is a mild form of surrealism, a theatre of moderately amusing wordplay that strikes me as both precious and pretentious. The younger members of the audience seem to find his work truly amusing. Furious Space was derived from Je suis (I Am) a novel by Novarina, and the words je suis in neon were placed at the back of the stage. Philippe Marioges set divided the stage and the backdrop diagonally. One side was painted white and the other side was painted in an abstract design that resembled the work of Klee. At one point there was a realistic painting of a river valley on the backdrop, and, at another point there was a view of the Canal de lOurq. Chairs were the most important props. Renato Bianchi provided mostly neutral col-

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Furious Space, written and directed by Valre Novarina. Photo: Brigitte Enguerand

ored and slightly stylized costumes. The look of the production was hip and fashionable, but not terribly interesting. And unfortunately, that was the general effect of Novarinas staging. The Comdie-Franaise actors did their best, given the circumstances. Vronique Vella and Alexandre Pavolff were charming as the Ultrabief Child and the Child Crossing. They delivered their nonsense lines with great conviction. Daniel Zynk, an accomplished clown, was always amusing as Sosie, a role he created in 1991. Deep-voiced Francois Chattot played a man who claimed to have killed his wife and children. Catherine Salviat made the Poor Figure suitably winsome and performed the plays best song. The music was composed by Christian Paccoud, who as the Unlogical Man, performed his score on an accordion. Although Novarina claims to have created a new kind of theatre based in language rather than character, his language does not have the force and his work does not have the coherence of such illustrious precursors as Jean Cocteau and Gertrude Stein. Michel Vinavers short play September 11, 2001 was created in English at the Center for New Performance at CalArts in a staging by French director, Robert Cantarella. This production was

brought to Paris in June for a brief run in the small space at the Thtre de la Colline. Vinaver, who was in New York on September 11, 2001, has written a thirty minute collage of moments from the events of that day. It is artfully constructed and is a moving evocation of the disastrous events. Cantarellas staging, using student actors, was tricked up with unnecessary technical effects. On the stage left wall images were projected. Photographs of the World Trade Center alternated with bright colored images of products and produce in a supermarket. The eleven actors all performed numerous roles and frequently their voices were miked. Often the name of the character speaking was announced by another actor, an effect which made clear the collage-like structure of the text. Cantarella chose to repeat the piece two times, with the actors playing different parts each time. This was interesting the first time the play was repeated. The second repetition made the whole evening seem more like a classroom exercise in acting. I think the French audience might have appreciated it being performed in French the third time around. The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, by Swiss playwright Lukas Brfuss, was created in Basel in 2003. Bruno Bayen translated the text and

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staged it in January 2005 at the Thtre-Vidy in Lausanne. This production was performed at the Thtre de Genevilliers this Spring. Brfuss play is a dark comedy whose protagonist Dora is a somewhat retarded young woman. After years of being virtually catatonic on a regime of tranquilizers, her mother decides to stop all Doras medications. Dora gradually emerges from her torpor, and discovers sex, which she enthusiastically enjoys. A true naive, Dora is manipulated by the people in her world. Her mother is completely domineering; her father is weak willed and passive; her boss, a greengrocer, tries to control her; her boyfriend is alternately loving and abusive; her doctor espouses an extremely liberal sexual philosophy. When she gets pregnant, her parents force her to have an abortion. Her doctor convinces her that, since she might have retarded children and because she refuses to take birth control pills, she should have her uterus removed. Late in the play she learns that her parents are swingers, who seek sexual thrills in classified ads. Brfuss manner was deadpan and his style recalled the hyper-realism of Kroetz. Although the actors worked from a realistic base, Bayen did not locate them in a realistic environment. Set designer

Chantal de la Coste Messelire placed a narrow band of platforms across the front of the stage with entrances at each end. Props appeared upstage of these platforms: a bed, nightstand and window for the hotel room where Dora meets her boyfriend; a refrigerator and washing machine for Doras home; fruit stands upstage for Doras workplace; an arrival/departures board for the train station. All the elements were given a slightly surreal appearance. The fruit in the fruit stand was arranged in decidedly odd patterns. A TV was placed in the refrigerator. I think Bayen wanted to suggest Doras mental state with this surrealism, but I think he should have carried it out more emphatically. The actors were all excellent. Clotilde Hesmes Dora was a kind of idiot savant, whose blankness set off the vacuity of the life around her. Elnore Hirt played Doras bosss mother, the only character who truly communicated with Dora. Bayen tried to make her role more prominent by keeping her present behind a scrim during the final scenes of the play. Louis-Do de Lencquesaing was unctuous and self-righteous as the doctor. Emmanuelle Lafon played Doras mother with the right mix of force and sexual energy.

Bruno Bayens production of The Sexual Neuroses of our Parents. Photo: Brigitte Enguerand

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I think this production was a good example of what is generally perceived in Europe as a decline in the sense of community and a loss of value systems in a world that is increasingly commercialized and bland. One of the best productions of the season was the revival for the Paris Summer Festival of Jean-Francois Sivadiers Italienne stage and orchestra at the Opera-Comique. This long piece (three hours and forty minutes) has two parts. The second part, Italienne with orchestra was created in 1996. Sivadier added the first part, Italienne stage, for a production in 2004 at the Thtre national de Bretagne in Rennes. This production, directed by Sivadier, was subsequently performed in Paris at the Thtre des Amandiers and was awarded the critics prize for best production in 2005. Because the size of the audience was limited, I was not able to see the production in 2005. But Im glad as the OperaComique was a perfect home for this constantly amusing satire of the people involved preparing a production of Verdis La Traviata. In Italienne stage, the audience is cast in the role of the chorus whom the director, Antoine Markovski, has placed behind a scrim upstage, constantly watching the opera unfold. We are in a staging rehearsal with piano. Present are a young soprano performing the role of Violettas maid, an Italian Tenor playing Alfredo, the director, the conductor, David Ruschin, a German rehearsal pianist and the stage directors assistant who marks the role of the absent American Diva, June Preston. Nicolas Bouchaud was priceless as the manic stage director who wants to have Violetta die on a ramp extending into the audience rather than on a bed. He wanted a

bare stage, but through a frustrating confusion, has been strapped with a sofa he cant stand. Marie Caris was equally amusing as the young soprano in her first professional production, worshipping every cracked-brain idea the stage director offers. The Italian Tenor was played with infantile egoism by Vincent Gudon. Watching the actors try to carry out the directors increasingly demented ideas being rehearsed left the audience breathless from laughing. After the intermission the audience was led into the bowels of the theatre to take our seats in the orchestra pit where we were cast as the musicians preparing for a rehearsal with the orchestra. In Italienne with orchestra, the principal roles are the stage director, the conductor, the young soprano and the Diva. In this part the dominant role is the conductor, played by Sivadier. He was constantly haranguing various members of the audience/orchestra for their diverse mistakes or lack of attention. Bouchaud remained in good form as the director in conflict with his leading lady, June Preston. Charlotte Clamans was perfect as the Diva entering in a fur coat and wearing sun glasses, answering her cell phone in the middle of a discussion with the director, and cattily dealing with the young soprano. Lighting designer Jean-Jacques Beaudouin varied the illumination of the gilded auditorium in such a way that it became a character in the play as well. Sivadier has justifiably been much praised for Italienne stage and orchestra. He is clearly an avowed mlomane, a brilliant director and talented comic actor.

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Barcelonas Grec: A Change of Name and a Change of Direction

Maria M. Delgado Borja Sitja may not have programmed a memorable festival in 2005, but hes shown himself determined to go out with a bang in 2006 with a Grec Festival now strategically named the Barcelona Grec and marked by a theatre program that brings the great and the good of Catalan theatre (Calixto Bieito, Llus Pasqual, lex Rigola, La Fura dels Baus, Carles Santos) together with international figures and companies who have proved regular stalwarts of the Grec in recent years (the Wooster Group, Javier Daulte, Cheek by Jowl). Once more Shakespeare is given a prominent profilePasqual provides stagings of The Tempest and Hamlet; The Wooster Group offer an iconoclastic Hamlet; Ferran Madico opens A Winters Tale; and Pep Pla dismantles The Merchant of Venice. Catalan dramaturgy is also foregrounded with new pieces by Paco Zarzoso, Josep Julien and Pau Miro. Rosa Novell translates Old Times and Jordi Coca adapts Joan Maragalls posthumous work Nausica. Carles Santos is given a major retrospective at the Fundaci Joan Miro and Spanish-language directors Enrique Vargas and Gerardo Vera bring their most recent productions El eco de las sombras (The Echo of Shadows) and Divinas palabras (Divine Words) to what has now become one of Spains most important festivals. With a prominent festival booth just off Plaa Catalunya, performance venues across the city, and banners positioned strategically through main thoroughfares, Barcelonas Grec now seems an indelible part of city life through the month of July. The naming of Sitjas successor, Argentine Ricardo Szwarcer, former director of Buenos Aires Coln Theatre and Lilles Opera House, during the Grec certainly points to a strengthening of the international cultural import philosophy promoted by Sitja. Sitja converted the Grec from the citys summer theatre program into an international festival. The increased numbers and box office takings at this years festival, up from 134,426 in 2005 to 135,399, suggests that theres a growing audience for the event. Sitjas own criticisms that he would have liked to ensure stronger connections with the visual arts and greater touring possibilities for productions generated by the festival may be read as a veiled indication to his successor of where he thinks the festival ought to be heading. The outdoor, Epidauros-inspired Grec theatre from which the festival takes its name, built in 1929 for the World Exhibition, opened with Bieitos eagerly awaited reading of Peer Gynt. The production had premiered on 25 May at La Den Scene Nationale, the theatre in Norway where Ibsen opened many of his works, as part of the Bergen Festival. Written in Italy in 1867, the work has long been perceived as one of the theatrical canons impossible ventures. At last years Bergen Festival Robert Wilson orchestrated a dream-like world devoid of naturalistic referents. Yukio Ninagawas 1994 reading proffered a futuristic universe for a mechanical age with a Welsh, Japanese, Irish and Norwegian cast. Now Bieito gives us his take on Ibsens reworking on Homers Odyssey, a smartly pruned reading that converts Ibsens five-hour dramatic poem into a taut three-hour spectacle that firmly shakes off the shackles of the folkloric in favor of a hard, cold look at the psyche of an ambitious dreamer who lets nothing stand in his way. Bieitos regular designer Alfons Flores provides a cold, metallic set made up of three structures of aluminum scaffolding that reach up high across the back of the stage. Stage right is a cramped stall thats seen better days peddling Norwegian flags, beer and other tourist commodities. Stage left, three portable latrines. This is no idealized landscape, but rather a wasteland of sorts where Joel Joans Peer can be seen drunk on the floor behind the toilets. He staggers and stumbles, plastic cup in hand, tumbling into the latrine as his mother heaves beer barrels around him. Mont Planss Aase is a no-nonsense bleached blonde with attitude, a capacity for hard work and a wayward son with a roving eye who doesnt think twice about tying her to a chair with sellotape and stripping her of her meager funds. Peers character is announced with a blistering rendition of The Rolling Stones Satisfaction. A restless soul, he struts dominantly across the stage. Sporting cowboy boots and a tshirt whose design snarls at the audience like an ominous trollone of many sly references to associations around the play made by Bieitothis Peer demands constant kicks and thrills. He sings of having Faitha rough and ready rendition of the George Michael songbut his faith lies only in

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himself. He is a dangerous, amoral being who knows no limits and devours anything or anyone that dares impede him. He dominates the stage with his height and build, falling threateningly close to his mother as she toils around him and he drinks away the fruits of her labor. At the Haegstad wedding party, he hovers ominously around the action, seducing Victria Pagss giggling Ingrid in a brutal manner. This is rape conducted within the not-sohidden walls of the latrine, and vengeance is swift as the men in her family dispense a brutal beating on discovering the crime. Bieitos production begins at a breakneck pace. A band positioned across the different levels of the scaffolding provides dissonant chords and an accompaniment for the musical numbers. This Peer thinks nothing of charging into the audience to secure their complicity or dismay. The production brings the play close to home in more ways than one. The trolls, recognizable emblems of the Norwegian nation and prominent marketing tools in cultivating the national image, are here conceived not as folkloric mythical figures but rather as incarnations of our basest instincts. They are led by Boris Ruiz as a shady king in gold lam trousers who doesnt think twice about masturbatingalbeit with a prosthetic memberin front of all his lurid subjects. His daughter, the Green Woman, brilliantly incarnated by Llus Villanueva as an alluring transvestite in a cascading blonde wig, thigh-high

boots and huge designer sunglasses, physically entraps Peer with a dog lead and collar. These trolls are sadomasochists whose magnetism is evident to the wayward Peer. The pregnancy is envisaged as a gross act, a surreal dream that haunts Peers consciousness. There are, as Marcos Ordez pointed out in his review of the play for Spanish daily El Pas, echoes of Fassbinder, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Dennis Hoppers menacing villain in Lynchs Blue Velvet in the portrayal of these trolls. Bieito has spoken of his production as an acid look at provincialism and its limits, interrogating the narrowness of vision of small communities or nations who consistently look inwards rather than outwards. The deformity that ensues is evident in Bieitos aesthetic. While the iconography of the flag kiosk might suggest a Norwegian landscape in thrall to the caveats of tourism, the linguistic register of the productionCatalanalso suggests a thinly veiled commentary on events in Bieitos own nation as greater autonomy looms in the near future. The second part of the production opens with Act Three envisaged as a televised debate between the now affluent Peer and a range of fellow European entrepreneurs conducted on a raised platform of the Grecs surrounding gardens. The interlude functions as a commentary on televisions pervasive influence in contemporary life, partitioning and compartmentalizing the infor-

Calixto Bieitos Peer Gynt seen at the Grec Festival Barcelona, following its opening at Norways Bergen Festival. Photo: Vegar Valde

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mation it processes and spits out for public consumption. Victria Pagss rendition of Something Stupid is followed by the debate, promoting a vision of individual aspiration that only recognizes an avaricious capitalist imperative. The suave, smiling Peer, who has swapped the clothes of his rebellious adolescence for a smart suit and designer tie, speaks the international lingo of commercial acquisition. This is Peer as global icon, a dodgy tycoon for the twenty-first century. English as a second language is the discourse of the negotiating table and Joans parody of an English upper-class accent touched by American inflections provides an astute observation on where he sees himself. The debate is conducted through the direct translation of assistant director Josep Galindos unperturbed, deadpan interpreter. References to the GreekTurkish conflict have been replaced by others to Palestine and Israel. The assembled businessmen, all played by Romea regularsCarles Canut, Miquel Gelabert, Boris Ruiz and Mingo Rfols represent facets of the new Europe. But it is a Europe whose economy is boosted by funds from the illicit sex trade and arms sales. The inside club see Joel Joan as a brash outsider; his outsider status is enforced by casting decisions that position the Romeas male company as a unit against the rampant, unscrupulous capitalism embodied by the blunt Peer. The conspicuous appearance of the Bara hymn at the end of the sequence may further serve to align Bieitos reading of the play with the more insular aspects of nascent Catalan nationalism. Peers travels in the plays final two acts are conveyed across the vertical axis of a three-tier metallic tower, brought forward from the back of the stage, to provide a sense of a journey upwards rather than the horizontal storytelling forms of much narrative. Like Lepage, Bieito favors the vertical realm of storytelling and his reading of the tale puts us in touch with Peers demons and gods. The metallic structure is a modern-day Tower of Babel, and it is here that Peer finds his not-so-promised land as he and his evangelical devotees sing Leonard Cohens Hallelujah chorus. This is a Peer possessed, and his encounter with Ana Salazars Anitra sees him in thrall to the exoticism that she represents. This is no Eastern temptress, but a flamenco dancer who strips him, ties him up and then takes his wallet. Ibsen wrote the play while in Italy and the issue of immigration and selfimposed exile looms prevalently in Bieitos reading. Amita is conceived as an imported sex slave who

gets her own back at the first possible opportunity. Across the tower Bieito employs his multiple points of action. We never get the sense of a long physical journey, but rather the haunting of a latter-day Quixote battling his windmills. His business associates convey the trappings of Egypt by placing masks over their faces. The storm at sea is rendered through an ominous rattling of the scaffolding; men holding precariously to the bars as cries and screams convey the horrors of the tempest. Roser Cams nomadic Solveig pursues Peer with her eyes blindfolded, grappling through the darkness in search of an elusive object of desire that perpetually evades her grasp. The lunatic asylum sees men clamoring to escape the structures of the tower, pulling at the bars like animals in a cage. The emphasis on a contained structure reinforces the sense of Peers journey being metaphorical rather than physical: he returns to where he came having not aged visibly. There are no wigs here, or heavy make-up. Age is rather conveyed through the manner of moving the body, through a shrug of the shoulders and a turning of the head, fitting with Bieitos conception of the character as a person who refuses to grow up. Peers return home takes place on an empty stage where the figments of the popular imagination battle to impose their vision of the Nordic landscape. This is a space that exists only in the realm of the mythicala maiden dressed in formal national costume; Father Christmas bringing a contemporary take on the onionendless layers of wrapping paper that peel away to reveal no central gift. At the end of the play there is no satisfaction, just a group of hanging corpses that serve as poignant reminders of those Peer destroyed on the way. He never finds solace with Solveig. She wanders the stage like a lost ghost; her physical blindness a telling commentary on her obsession with Peer and Peers fixation with capitalisms wares and wiles. Perhaps her spectral drifting is both a comment on our own obsession with the thrills of the buy-and-sell culture and a comment on the fact that when it comes to love, were all to a greater or lesser extent, blind(ed). Joel Joans Peer is the lynchpin of Bieitos production, binding the different elements together with a central performance that moves from highoctave energy to the more subtle (and ominous) registers of his capitalist incarnations; there is no need for three actors here. Joans imposing physical presence marks him out from the outset and he provides

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an anti-romantic reading of the eponymous antiof Brechts practice to something altogether less hero. Both drunken and sober, manic and comprescriptive and more disquieting. posed, fantasist and realist, he is able to take on any Catalan daily El Peridico was to refer to necessary personality to achieve the desired aim. Peer Gynt as 100% Bieito: a comment on the habitHe wants celebrity and in our celebrity-saturated ual elements of the maverick directors house style age, who can blame him? that were present in the production. The Wooster The Romea company provides the kind of Group, playing at the Mercat de les Flors for the outstanding ensemble support thats proved such a second year in succession, again offer a recognizahallmark of Bieitos work. Roser Cam offers no ble avant-garde house style that has been wooing lovely blonde Nordic Solveig, but rather a clumsy audiences beyond its now legendary New York conawkward woman, trapped in late adolescence with verted garage home for over three decades. Their thick, unflattering eyeglasses and harshly clampedwork with classical texts has never been convenback hair. Tied to the drum kit that she plays with a tional, rather a process of cut and paste, of dismanmonotone rhythm, she is an emblematic reminder of tling and reconstructing, of juxtaposing with and/or a certain type of monotony that Peer fears and flees superimposing onto contemporary tales or reenactfrom. At the end of the play she does not lull him to ed moments. Arthur Millers The Crucible was prosleep but rather staggers around searching in vain duced in fast forward format in The Road to for her lost love. Mingo Rafls is a blunt button-molder. Miquel Gelabert is convincing as the lad who graphically cuts his finger to avoid military service. Amparo Moreno and Mont Plans join the Romea company for the production and simultaneously impress as the widow of the man whose funeral Peer stumbles on, washing the corpse as she poignantly delivers the monologue given to the priest in Ibsens text, and Aase. Planss down-to-earth Aase is weary and wheezing, battered by a life spent scraping a living with a son who teeters around her drunkenly without offering assistance or solace. She is conceived as an asthmatic with little faith in what the future can offer. Her death scene (realized in Peers arms) is one of the productions most expertly realized moments, a fusion of the earthy and the unreal as both appear to take off into the heavens. Bieito needs no dazzling special effects. The sense of momentum comes through a furious performance language and a complex soundscape that dispenses with Greigs sugary score, using it only once fleetingly as an ironic commentary. The music played by the onstage band from Sinatra to Verdisupplies a sharp commentary on the action much in the manner of Brechts Baal. There is something almost Brechtian in Bieitos production but the humor, anger and visceral energy of the reading ultimately offers a Joel Joans Peer encounters the trolls in Calixto Bieitos reading of Peer Gynt. reading that moves beyond the paradigms Photo: Vegar Valde

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Immortality (1986), Thornton Wilders Our Town represented as vaudeville in Route 1 and 9 (1980), Chekhovs Three Sisters was reduced to occasional dialogue and plot summaries in Brace Up (1992) and Racines Phdre irreverently reconceived as colloquial banter in To You, the Birdie! (2001). Now the company turns their gaze to Hamlet, but the encounter with the play is strongly mediated by John Gielguds 1964 production featuring Richard Burton in the title role. The staging premiered at Broadways Lunt-Fontanne theatre was subsequently captured on film by Gielgud and Bill Colleran. Its status is legendary, no doubt accentuated by its accessibility as a preserved artifact. The preserved remains are broadcast in black and white on a giant screen at the back of the stage. The images are often grainy, the action blurred, and cuts and blackouts testify to the age of the recording. Once more video streaming proves a dominant organizing motif for the production. It is both referent and cue, a mode of measuring the action and a commentary on what is happening live as the actors begin an impersonation of what is occurring onscreen. The recorded image is startling in its imperfections, manipulated as moments are replayed while others lost in the recording process haunt us with their absence. Like a giant canvas, at once realist and abstract, it is startling in its contemporaneity. As the actors meticulously recreate the onscreen movements, the sound of Gielguds production functions as a distant echo on which the live voices are superimposed. As the actors recreate the fast-forwards and the replays, we are given a sense of the palpable failure of any attempt to record, recreate or capture the ephemerality of performance. We are as deceived as Scott Shepherds Hamlet by the images that flash before us, with the live presented as an illusion as contrived and mechanized as the recorded. Those familiar with the companys trajectory will find ample material here. The intersecting soundscape was made up of live action, onscreen actors, the crackling film quality, and the sound of the film being forwarded and rewound. The trappings of technology litter Ruud van den Akkers stage design: smaller monitors, wires, actors partially framed in the wingspresence conveyed both in the sphere of the live and through the video monitors stage right and left. Offstage is as much onstage as onstage. A dexterous wheelchair, annexed to a metallic table is the only conspicuous prop, both throne and grave. It weaves its way

around the performers, a discordant reminder of an all too evident difference with the armchair of the projected film. Kate Valk is both a regal Gertrude and willowy Ophelia; the change of role conveyed by a different wig and a loose fitting pinafore as well as the shift in the vocal register to match that of the onscreen characters. But Gertrudes frock is forever present beneath the trappings of Ophelias costume. Gertrude appropriates the wheelchair-throne, a prison that propels her around the stage like a bumper car. No attempt is made to present any kind of physical approximation to the onscreen actors. Lola Pashalinskis Polonius is a short, limping figure who walks across the stage aided by a firm walking frame. Casey Spooner provides a single Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the perennial double act personified in a lone performer. The cast of seven undertakes imaginative doubling that further fractures attempts to provide an equation between actor and role. The production is a one trick-pony, brilliantly realized, but for many little more than a dazzling metatheatrical game, expertly choreographed under Elizabeth LeComptes meticulous direction. A significant number of the audience chose to leave in the interval, but this may have been in part due to the misguided decision to dispense with subtitles. Did the Festival assume all the audience would know the play well enoughor have enough Englishto work out what was going on? There is an amusing complicity demanded of us as audience members, and the in-jokes are a constant source of pleasure that may have been missed by those unable to follow the production. The Renaissance is smartly referenced in the costume design. The thematic concerns of the play, issues of repetition and indecision, are also skillfully reinforced across the dcor and costumes. We are perpetually reminded of the presence of past productions that haunt all stagings of the play. Here the ghostly remnants of the Gielgud-Burton production make themselves felt in a very direct manner. When digressions occur they shock, amuse and appall. Casey Spooners Laertes bursts into song, mike in hand, on hearing of Ophelias death. The gravediggers scene is enacted in fast-forward, barely a word of the celebrated dialogue discernable. At the end the actors are silent, leaving the final words to the onscreen performers whose faint, crackling words echo through the silent auditorium, to devastating effect. Llus Pasquals Hamlet begins with

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Scott Shepherd takes the title role in The Wooster Groups Hamlet. Photo: Paula Court

silence. A night watch on duty prowls in front of a giant concrete wall stage right. Nooses hang from the upper level of the wall, an eerie reminder of the culture of punishment and fear that marks the location. Where the wall ends a luscious black curtain begins, occupying the remainder of the back of the stage. The curtain glitters and glistens adorned with silver slivers that shine alluringly. These are the two sides of Elsinore: the fortress and palace. The castle is conceived as a dual location, a place of irreconcilable differences. Pasqual begins by delineating the military dimensions of the play. Soldiers stalk along the fortress as Hamlets father appears, dressed in fatigues and a green beret, his face streaked with paint as if in camouflage effect. Eduard Fernndezs Hamlet hovers on the margins of the stage, a slight, edgy wisp of a lad. He appears as a quiet, gentle being, an outsider which is further confirmed by his Catalan accent. The court is a largely Castilian entity in more ways than one. The robes draped over his black suit bear heavily on him and he often seems to cower beneath them. As his father appears he hides his head beneath his cloak, and a panic attack ensues as his father leaves. This Hamlet may have worshipped his father, but his father represents a military ideal that he cannot possibly emulate. The relationship with his father, early scenes suggest, is somewhat based on fear and adoration from afar. Marisa Paredess Gertrude is also a distant

figure; queen first and mother second. The tension between these roles is evident from the start as she attempts to position herself between the sarcastic Hamlet and the suave Claudius (Helio Pedregal). As Hamlet falls apart, she reinforces by example the need to remain poised at all times, to keep up appearances and ensure that whatevers happening behind the scenes, a hair never falls out of place. The trophy wife of a military commander, she moves sideways to his all-smiling diplomat of a brother, floating across the stage in an attempt to appease the warring elements of her court. She is a woman no one ever says no to, a husky, smoketainted voice capable of seducing anything or anyone that crosses her path. Her semi-incestuous kiss with Hamlet elicits a response of shock before the glacial, almost spectral poise returns to take control once more. There is much of the classic rebel in Fernndezs Danish prince. He finds laddish amusement with the identically attired Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Javier Ruiz de Alegria and Alberto Berzal), and he comes alive when the actors come to town, relaxing in ways that are simply not possible with his own family. His rough and ready Hamlet is a veritable contrast to his poised elegant mother and polished, vaguely nauseous, uncle. The actors and the audience are his true confidantes. He leans forward to address us, a slight, mercurial figure that darts across the stage in watchful surveil-

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lance. He orchestrates the actors with purpose, positioning his mother and uncle among the audience as he gives directions to Anna Lizarans worldly company director. He never really appears to be in love with Ophelia; she seems more a distraction. It is with Lizarans troop of actors where he feels at home, laughing and relaxing with an element of gay abandon. While the pace may be a little slow to start, Pasquals production soon gathers momentum, and orchestrates the second half with a strong sense of the story. A complex soundscape provides an almost constant underscoring and builds up the sense of an approaching military threat. There are echoes of Pasquals celebrated Julius Caesar (1988) in the costumes conceived by Isidre Pruns and Csar Olivar as capes drape over contemporary suits. Paco Azorns simple set offers a backdrop that masks and disguises in ways that comment on the themes of the play. There is some imaginative casting: Lander Iglesias gives a knowing Basque gravedigger complete with txapela; Jess Castejns portly Polonius is the quintessential bureaucrat, slightly pompous if well-meaning with an efficacious demeanor. His glasses are perennially waved around in a vaguely reprimanding manner. The production has one weak link, Rebeca Vallss blonde, wide-eyed Ophelia, who seems to do little more than regurgitate all the textbook traits of the putupon love interest. Certainly Pasquals shrewd adaptation has pruned her part, but she fails to rise to the challenges of the production, remaining little more than a drippy, post-adolescent infatuated by the older Hamlet who appears to never feel much more than irritation for her. Valls is cast as the adolescent Miranda in Pasquals Tempest, playing alongside Hamlet in a double bill linked by Pasqual through the theme of violenceviolence executed with terrible consequences in Hamlet, violence deferred in preference to negotiation and forgiveness in the Bards final stage work. Both are plays driven by sibling usurpation, but the ominous mood of Hamlet is replaced by a lightness of touch that marks Pasquals playful treatment of The Tempest. The dramatic storm is ingeniously rendered with the curtain that forms the back wall of the stagea more expansive version of the glimmering drape used in Hamletfalling to form the body of a ship tossing and turning on the seas. This is conjured not by a Peter Pan-like nymph, but by Anna Lizarans robust Ariel. Lizaran gives us Ariel as stage-manager, clad

in clownish dungarees and what look like foil wings attached rather precariously to the back of her outfit. Her crop of red hair further substantiates the clown-like associations, and her bouncing across the stage (with an ironic occasional skip thrown in for good measure) sets her up as a Sancho Panza to Francesc Orellas lithe, stately Prospero. The Lecoq-trained Lizaran is a delight from start to finish, enjoying a sublime complicity with Orellas aristocratic Prospero. She peeps through the curtain with mischievous relish, feigning the drowning at sea of the Napolese court with all the charm of a pro at Charades. Her red-gloved hands conjure a wave of further Ariels to assist her in the set tasks, manipulating the hapless Fernando (Pablo Vilar replacing the indisposed Ivn Hermes on the night I saw the production) like a listless rag doll, waving the lovers together, sparing Gonzalo and Alonso from their more treacherous courtiers. The characterization builds intelligently on her memorably animated Vladimir in Pasquals 1999 Waiting for Godot and her dark blue cap and uniform-like attire clearly function as a nod to the earlier production. Here she is guided by Orella handling a baton as if conducting an orchestra. She has a vaudeville routine at the ready for all eventualities. The sparkling sequins that adorn her dungarees and cap suggest something of a circus routine that the shimmering curtain, mutating from pink to blue, further substantiates. Jorge Santoss Trinculo has something of a different type of jester about him. He is part crossdresser, part cabaret diva, an effeminate being in veritable contrast to the butch ships cook Stephano: all tattoos and bravado. They are a double act to rival Lizarans Ariel and Orellas Prospero, stepping over and across the discarded planks of wood that litter the front of the stage to evoke the inaccessible island. Aitor Mazo gives us Caliban as a dirty old man with a seedy laugh and a raging sexual appetite. Valls is a lackluster Miranda, all skips and smiles, and the scenes with Vilars Fernando lack any kind of sexual charge. It is the metatheatrical associations of Shakespeares text that Pasqual chooses to accentuate. Orellas rich, resonant voice is at once seductive and alluring. He is a siren of sorts, drawing all the different elements to him with the effortless skill of a master conductor. In the manner of the most accomplished ensembles the lead actors of Hamlet here have well-judged cameos; Eduard Fernndez is a desperate sea captain, Jess Castejon a hearty Stephano.

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This is Pasquals debut at the new Lliure, and in a city of such polarized affiliations it is commendable that the Lliure entered into the double bill as co-producers and hosts of the Barcelona runthe production is realized in association with the Grec, Madrids Espaol theatre and Bilbaos Arriaga, of which Pasqual is now artistic director. As the former co-founder and artistic director of the Lliure, Pasquals trajectory with the theatre is long and distinguished. He may be associated with the companys Grcia home but the warm reception that both productions received at the Lliures Montjuc base suggests that many still recall the PasqualPuigserver glory days with strong affection. Anna Lizaran too saw the Lliure as her Barcelona home for over two decades. Her defiant stamping on the stage during the curtain call of The Tempest suggested a firm appropriation of the venue and a coming home in more ways than one for one of the theatres past key players. Argentine dramatist-director Javier Daulte has proved a regular feature of the Catalan stage in recent years. This summer he has two works at the Grec: Metamorphosis, a collaboration with La Fura dels Baus; and La felicitat (Happiness), a co-production with the Romea, which builds on the success of Ets aqui?, seen with Clara Segura and Joel

Joan in 2005. For those that are familiar with Daultes dramaturgy, La felicitat offers familiar terrain: a metatheatrical game that moves away from a realist premise to provide a fusion of the extraterrestrial, the supernatural and the mundane conjured from the day to day concerns of what appear to be ordinary people. Rosa (Clara Segura) and Rogers (Jordi Roca) relationship is crumbling. Roger isnt in love with her anymore, but Rosa is not prepared to accept that and devises a plan, with the complicity of her parents Omar (Francesc Lucchetti) and Fina (Anna M. Barbany), to kidnap him and create a new existence that keeps him with her. Her happiness is the only imperative, but what she fails to realize is that happiness is an elusive entity, difficult to qualify and impossible to hold onto. Daulte structures his play like a sitcom, echoing the formula of the TV show that plays in the background. But this sitcom has a rather nasty edge, as the opening sequence, featuring Rogers cries in the dark, demonstrates. The cinematic credits that follow have something of an eerily dramatic feel announcing that something rather ominous lurks beneath the shiny, happy veneer of the nuclear family. The benign father and the perpetually smiling mother provide a model of parental indulgence

Father (Francesc Lucchetti), Daughter (Rosa Segura), alien Christopher (Joan Negri), and Mother (Anna M. Barbany) in Javier Daultes production of La felicitat. Photo: David Ruano

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that results in horrific consequences. For Rosa is thirty, but performs the tantrums of a teenager dishing up nasty punishments to those who dare double cross her. The android that comes to her assistance, Christopher (Joan Negri), to drug and reconfigure Roger, is a compliant being, a servant to her wiles and wishes. Her enactment of fantasies through the prisms of the TV series that played in the first scene comments on the pervasive influence of a medium that comes to dominate how she manipulates her family. Segura is a persuasive actress whose open face gives little away. There is much of the screwball comedy performer about her, but it makes her all-controlling malice all the more frightening. Ariane Unfried and Rifail Ajdarpasics set has a fitting, retro-1970s feel. The swords on the wall suggest a certain danger, and the fading wallpaper and well-worn furniture give the room a Pinteresque air. The play wears its cinematic references somewhat heavily. The giant syringe used to inject the hapless Roger is straight out of Hammer Horror and a B-movie staple. The invasion that the team is fighting in the second half has points of contact with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and other studies of alien takeover. Daultes formula seems less convincing here than in his earlier plays. The superlative Gore, seen at the 2003 Grec has yet to be surpassed. The play also lacks Gores more compact quality. This is altogether more ambling, and pruning twenty minutes from the overall length would have made for a punchier evening. Nevertheless, there is much to admire here: the different performance registers that the characters shift to and from with admirable ease, the smart parody of TV action features, the move from the mundane to the ominous in the blink of an eye. Daulte has described the piece as a melodrama-cum-horror story, and he juggles the plays shifts of mood with an astute sense of pacing. The challenge now lies in seeing whether he can move beyond the established recipe to try out new configurations of the unreal that prove less predictable. lex Rigola, current director of the Teatre Lliure, has sometimes been compared to the marginally older Calixto Bieito. Certainly both like to dissect the classical texts they stage in imaginative ways, but Bieitos influences are more obviously Hispanic; his most discernible mentors Buuel and Boadella. Rigolas mentors lie elsewhere. Castorf seems his most evident reference point, but there are traces of Chreau also in the precision of his stage language. Certainly there is something of the gen-

tlemens toilets designed by Alfons Flores for Bieitos A Masked Ball in the bathroom setting designed by collective artists Cube for Rigolas latest production, Arbusht. But this is where the comparison ends. Here the setting is used to provide a metaphorical environment for rumination on the rise of George W. Bush. Arbusht marks a collaboration with contemporary Valencian dramatist Paco Zarzoso; a satire for our times with a target that proves far too easy for the liberal intelligentsia that haunt the Lliure. Take this play to the pro-Bush heartland and you might have had a tense evening. Here, its preaching to the converted. As such, it never quite holds together. There is something of Brechts Arturo Ui in Zarzosos telling of the rise of Bush from Texan clown to President, seduced along the way by religion in the form of Joan Carrerass devastating characterization of the icy pastor with piercing eyes and an answer to all Bushs failings. This reverend is all wide lapels, slick suit, fixed smile and a Bible that can be slipped across to offer solace to those seeking refuge in alcohol and the more obvious pleasures of this world. Pere Arquillu offers a second temptation in the form of powerful oil interests. Here a swagger, a Stetson and a bottle of bourbon effectively convey the machinations of this second puppet-master pulling the strings to maneuver the weak Bush into position. Carreras and Arquillu offer delicious characterizations, Mephistophelean figures who tempt the clown-like Bush into assuming the mantles of power. Its a high energy opening: funny, witty and smart. Neither play nor production, however, really develops far beyond these first two sharp scenes. Bushs later encounters seem overly crude, and while Alicia Prez offers an unperturbedly professional vice-president, the image of Condoleezza Rice is too pervasive to permit Rigola to replace the sidelined Cheney with a characterization that seems to have emerged from the conspirators in Julius Caesar. I missed the precision that is usually such a mark of Rigolas costume aesthetic. Here it was all just too anonymously drawn. Crucially, Julio Manrique remains a dithering fool from beginning to end; there is no character progression, no development, no sense of what it means to go from pampered boy to governor of Texas and then to president. Manriques Bush encounters the reverend, the oil magnate and the cheerleader in a washroom where business is then conducted with his Presidential team. As Rigola demonstrated in Julius

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Pere Arquillu represents oil interests tempting Julio Manriques George Bush in Paco Zarzosos Arbusht at the Teatre Lliure. Photo: Ros Ribas

Caesar and Richard III, politics is a dirty business, and what more effective metaphor for the sewage that runs through contemporary governments than a bathroom that remains glisteningly white no matter what sordid business is conducted within its walls? There is a slickness to the staging that proves effective, for example, Bowies Young Americans is a brilliant leitmotif used to punctuate and comment on the action at regular intervals, often accompanied by a country music dance routine, brilliantly executed by the cast. My reservations lie in what appears a disparity between text and production. Peter Sellars demonstrated in Being There (1979) that any fool can rise to the Presidential office with a bit of strategic help and a willing suspension of disbelief. Satire needs something less easy and more dangerous. Rigola should take a look at Mark Ravenhills corrosive Product playing at Gironas Temporada Alta festival in mid October, a far more disturbing portrait of contemporary political discourses that would offer a brilliant vehicle in a Catalan translation for either Arquillu or Carreras. The gem of this years Grec is hidden away at the back of the program, but it should be high on the agenda of anyone with any kind of interest in the development of Catalan theatre over the past forty years. Carles Santos is one of world theatres gen-

uine mavericks, a composer, pianist, director, poet, and photographer whose interdisciplinary collaborations have been amongst the most exciting stagings of recent decades. A regular presence at the Edinburgh International Festival over the past ten years, his attempts to provide a visual language for music have generated thrilling baroque spectacles that move beyond the more Germanic austerity of Heiner Goebbels or Christoph Marthalers work in this area. Santos is a Mediterranean Kantor. A muse for Tpies and Guinovart, the influence of Buuel, Dal and Mir is palpable in his iconography and this is well represented throughout the Fundaci Joan Mirs retrospective of Santoss work presented until November. Entitled Long Live the Piano, the exhibition offers both a look back at Santoss creative impulses and products, from the Cage-inspired compositions in the late 1960s that followed an important career as a professional pianist, to the sophisticated post-operatic music theatre pieces of the last decade. There is ample visual evidence of his collaborations with artist and poet Joan Brossa, which initiated the shift from performer to composer. The films made by or with Pere Portabella are projected in a designated room. Santoss own films again betray collaborations with other performers. The photographs, as with the twenty-four images of the Srie Bach.

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Tema amb variacions (1997-8) are a commentary on his artistic process, how he interprets the work of other composers. Crucially, the exhibition also looks forward with the series of pianos presented as Pianos intervinguts. These are pianos disrupted, perturbed or reconfigured by the presence of attached appendices: a propeller emerges from the keyboard of one; a ceramic hand resting gently on the keyboard of another catches drops of water falling from the light that illuminates it; giant ears resembling wings are attached to the sides of a third; a clamp is positioned across the keyboard and into the hammers of a fourth; a surfboard protrudes from the lid of a further piano, marked discretely by the fins of a shark. Could this be a design for a future show? Pianos are created from symbols of the Mediterranean, as the oranges configured as a grand piano show. These are pianos mutilated and reimagined, questioning the pianos status as a passive piece of furniture lying decoratively in a corner of the room. The poster to the exhibition shows Santos crucified on the body of a concert grand piano frame. It is a brilliant metaphor for a life spent irrevocably linked to an instrument that governs the routines of his day. It is both prison and liberation, pain and pleasure, punishment and reward. The remnants of a massacred piano lie beside the life-size image of its previous incarnation. An errant pianolaseen in his 1997 La Pantera Imperial (The Imperial Panther)wanders playfully around the exhibition, pursuing spectators and interweaving around the exhibits. A giant cross crashes down periodically on a grand lying in a gladiatorial pit. Santoss own majestic grand, the Bosendorfer Imperial, stands in a protected space of its own, framed by the family paintings that formed the backdrop to his 2000 show Ricardo y Elena. The Balenciaga of grands, it is a majestic, pantherlike beast that dominates the space. Transferred from his home to the exhibition it becomes a practice arena for Santos, who once more reiterates the importance of liveness, of hearing the music reverberating across a particular space. Nothing, this exhibition constantly reminds us, replaces the thrill of the live. The ghosts of past productions are strategically positioned around the space. The giant foam busts of Bach (with more than a nod to Santos) of La Pantera Imperial bounce through open doorways, creating both a metronome of sorts and a curtain that reveals further props from earlier shows. The piano and chandelier from La grenya de Pasqual

Picanya (1991) remain in the red room of multiple doors that open and shut to almost comic effect as the performers come and go with the pacing of a French farce. The expansive undulating bed and costumes of Lesplndida vergonya del fet mal fet (The Splendid Shame of the Deed Badly Done) demonstrate the pull of the Hispanic as references to the bullfight, fans, and the colors of the Mediterranean situate Santos within a complex web of cultural associations that are as much about deconstructing stereotypes as playfully recognizing their existence. This is as much an exhibition about process as product. Its about how Santos works

The promotional poster for Santoss exhibition. Photo: courtesy Fundaci Joan Mir

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and the things that make him tick. Food is a constant reference point, as is Bach and the iconography of Catholicism. All intersect with the pianos and all cross with the collaborators that have shaped Santoss aesthetic. Crucial here is the Venezuelan designer Mariaelena Roqu who is co-director of the Companyia Carles Santos and has been working alongside him since 1985, when they first realized Piedraperla. Recognition of this comes in her own exhibition Mariaelena Roqu undresses Carles Santos, presented at Barcelonas Textile and Clothing Museum, which functions as a companionpiece to Long Live the Piano. Here Roqus magnificent Baroque creations are given center stage. Observed up close, they still appear unique artifacts, studies in color composition and juxtaposed textures. Positioned against religious robes from the Renaissance, we are given a perspective into her own historical research and influences. If Santos is seen as an artist who submits his performers to extraordinary rigors and toilssinging suspended on a trapeze or immersed in a bowl of water Roqu too asks them to move encased in ornate, exquisitely cut structures of cascading fabric that

almost take on a life of their own. The costumes are far more dexterous and flexible than they may first appear. They are almost like instruments, elements of dcor that infuse and shape the choreography. Playful, elegant, and witty, they mask and transform. Not for nothing are motifs of dressing and undressing, disguise and revelation key to Santoss work. These are costumes designed in the rehearsal room, watching the performers work, and for all their visual splendor they have a pragmatism that testifies to Roqus own extensive dance training and practice. The shape of the individual performers body fuels the shape and line of the costume. While Roqus vision may be testimony to the baroque theatricality of theatre, it is also a vision of the everyday that observes the detail of the textures and materials of our worlds past and present. Both Mariaelena Roqu undresses Carles Santos and Carles Santos: Long Live the Piano are perceptive deconstructions of artistic endeavor that look to the ever present tensions between the illusion created and concrete tools used to create that magic.

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Madrid, May 2006: Where are the living characters?

Phyllis Zatlin From time to time as I have reviewed theatre in Madrid, I have asked: where are the living Spanish playwrights [See WES 12.1, 12.3]? That question was still valid this past May, but the choice of texts at the municipal Teatro Espaol also raised as well the issue of living characters. The play that inaugurated Espacio Nuevo, the theatres new space that replaces a caf, is Siglo XX. . .que ests en los cielos (Twentieth Century. . .who art in heaven). The play deals with deceased characters who await reincarnation. Murmullos del Pramo (Murmurs of Paramo), a Mexican opera whose world premiere took place on 12 May to coincide with the reopening of the main auditorium after a three-month renovation, is based on Juan Rulfos classic novel of the dead, Pedro Pramo. Some plays, including ones by Spanish authors like La curva de la felicidad (Beer-Belly) by Eduardo Galn and Pedro Gmez, have run all season or been carried over from previous seasons, but the surprise among innovative hits has been the National Company for Classic Theatres rediscovery of the sainetes (comic sketches) of Ramn de la Cruz (1731-94). For fourteen years, starting at the end of the 1989-90 season, the Teatro Espaol was under the sometimes polemical leadership of Gustavo Prez Puig, assisted by his wife Mara Recatero. Prez Puig discarded a former policy of limited runs of plays and Recatero, a specialist in Spanish comedy, often had box-office successes that ran full seasons. As previously reported in WES, her staging of Los habitantes de la casa deshabitada (The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited House) by Enrique Jardiel Poncela (1901-52) was the longest-running show in Madrid in the 1998-99 season [See WES 11:3]. Similarly, her revival of Celos del aire (In August We Play the Pyrenees), to commemorate the centenary of its author, Jos Lpez Rubio (1903-96) [See WES 9.1], ran for several months in 2003-04 [See WES 16:2]. If Madrid playwrights sometimes grumbled that their citys showcase theatre had a conservative policy that favored classic Spanish authors, whether Golden Age or twentieth century, complaints have multiplied under the policies of the new director, Mario Gas (b. Montevideo, Uruguay, 1947). Gas, who has long been associated with Barcelona theatre, is a widely acclaimed actor of stage and screen and director of theatre, opera and film. In the Fall 2005 issue of their magazine, the Association of Dramatists (AAT) suggested that Gas has tended to take a festival approach by inviting outside companies to present short-term productions instead of maintaining a repertory company of local actors. Association President Jess Campos Garca went so far as to ask if Mario Gas hates Spanish authors. But the question was directed at municipal advisor for the arts, Alicia Moreno, not at Gas, who was unavailable for comment. My own efforts to interview Gas on his policies were likewise unsuccessful; he was in Italy when I was in Madrid. Supporting the AAT contention, the theatres announced program through August 2006 included a variety of one-evening flamenco and other music and dance performances in May and late June; Llus Pasquals staging from Barcelona of Shakespeares Hamlet and The Tempest alternating 2-25 June; and, in July, two- to four-night performances of a German musical production honoring Samuel Beckett, Mikhail Baryshnikovs dance company from the U.S., and a production from Great Britain. Gass conversion of the Teatro Espaol into a venue for traveling companies and opera should not come as a surprise. In an interview for Teatro Madrid in March 2004, at the beginning of his tenure, he spoke of emphasizing theatre from all of the Spanish regions, of co-productions, and of cultural interchange with theatres from Europe and Latin America. He also expressed dismay that his predecessor had eliminated the theatres orchestra pit in order to put in more rows of seatsa comment which hinted at the future emphasis on musical theatre and opera. The Teatro Espaols announced summer season, however, did include two Spanish works: a six-week run, starting on 1 June, of Jos Ramn Fernndezs Nina, winner of the Lope de Vega Prize for 2003, under the direction of Salvador Garca Ruiz, and two zarzuelas by Pablo Sorozbal (18971988), 10 August-3 September, directed by Gas. A production at the Teatro Espaol has been a traditional part of the municipal Lope de Vega prize. On the other hand, in the past this theatre has not figured among Madrid spaces devoted to opera and zarzuela (Spanish-style operetta); that function has

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typically been associated with the Teatro Real and the Teatro de la Zarzuela. The fact that Siglo XX. . . que ests en los cielos is a work by a living Spanish playwright and that it was scheduled for a six-week run did not avoid dispute. David Desola Mediavilla is a playwright and scriptwriter from Barcelona; his prizes include the Marqus de Bradomn, 1999, a prestigious award for young playwrights. His engaging comments on the origin of this play, distributed with the press dossier, whetted my desire to see Siglo XX. . . . Other members of the audience may have been attracted by the director, Blanca Portillo, a wellknown actress of stage, screen and television (she appears in Pedro Almodvars most recent movie, Volver). But seeing the play proved to be a misnomer; Siglo XX. . . is staged almost entirely in the dark. That very darkness ignited controversy. The text of Siglo XX. . . focuses on two people who died far too young: a Republican soldier killed in 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and a drug user, who died of an overdose in 1985, when new freedoms in Spain sometimes gave rise to disastrous results. The time is the present (2006) and the two meet in a limbo state where they must wait until they are totally forgotten in order to volver, that is, return to earth. The soldiers reincarnation is delayed because his younger sister remembers him always, even on her deathbed.

The young woman is still in the thoughts of her boyfriend. Incongruously, the godlike figure who intervenes at intervals is identified as a spoiled child. At the end of the 65-minute performance, we learn that a mother and newborn baby have washed up on the shore and we assume that the two characters, still together, have successfully returned to earth. We can also assume that the older male figure has returned as the mother. The characterizations presumably include gender confusion. The program identifies Robert Enrquez as portraying a young man with the voice of a young woman, and Silvia Abascal as being a young woman with the voice of a young man. I did not detect ambiguous voices as I listened to the performance, but the text includes discussion on whether one can change gender and/or nationality upon returning to earth. The soldier, who was Catalan, does not want to be anything except Catalan and is upset that god does not understand his language. The subject is treated as comic relief, as are explicit comments about how the world changed between 1936 and 1985 and implicit comparisons between what the young woman expected the world to be like in our present and what we know it to be. Spectators entered a darkened theatre and were seated in straight-backed black chairs that were placed in a circular pattern and could not be

Silvia Abascal and Robert Enrquez in the shadowy Siglo XX. . . . Photo: Ruben Martin

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moved. Throughout most of the performance, the voices had the distorted sound of off-stage tape recordings. The soundtrack, darkness, and use of a wind machine were intended to immerse the audience in the characters limbo. Desolas note on the play gives Portillo sole credit for the staging. When I attended the play on 9 May, the 103-seat theatre was almost filled despite being a Tuesday evening near the end of its run. For some spectators, the novelty of being in the dark, and hence immersed in the characters world, no doubt was of interest, but other spectators that evening (most notably Jess Campos Garca, who sat two seats away from me) found little to praise as innovative. Camposs open letter accusing Moreno, Gas and Portillo of plagiarism was published in ABC on 16 May. Certainly there are notable similarities between Siglo XX. . . and Camposs A ciegas (Blindly), which premiered in Madrids autumn festival in 1997. Although these similarities include textual elements, such as gender confusion (an Alien is played by a woman with a deep voice and a male character gives birth at the end) and emphasis on the verb volver (to return), Camposs charge of alleged plagiarism is directed more to the staging than the script. The author-director, who is particularly intent on integrating word and image, is much admired for innovative stagings of his own texts [See WES 13.2]. A ciegas, a modern auto sacramental that parodies the Holy Trinity, was originally conceived as a radio play, but Campos soon decided it would work in the theatre. By suppressing the visual until the final moments of the play, the audience would be forced to concentrate on the verbal and to see the play through their sense of hearing. Portillos directors notes on Siglo XX. . . make precisely these same points about the desirability of having the spectators create their own images of the characters through the soundtrack. Campos is not alone in seeing the connections between the Portillo staging and his own, earlier production. Specific reference was made to Camposs A ciegas in the April reviews of Siglo XX. . . in at least three Madrid newspapers: El Mundo, El Pas, and La Razn. During the Prez Puig-Recatero era, the Teatro Espaol occasionally hosted a musical production. For example, Jardiel Poncelas comic operetta Carlo Monte en Monte Carlo, with its 60member cast, was a lavish spectacle by Spanish standards; it closed the 1995-96 season [See WES 9:1]. Murmullos del Pramo, however, introduced

a totally new venture: having the Teatro Espaol become the European center for contemporary opera. Such was the goal announced at a May press conference preceding the opening of the Mexican opera. The July production of For Samuel Beckett by Morton Feldman is another part of this project. According to playwright Jaime Salom (b. Barcelona 1925), the 2007 season will include a new opera about Salvador Dal, to be directed by Mario Gas. Salom has written the libretto; the music is by Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel. I was fortunate in being invited to attend the press conference for Murmullos del Pramo at the Teatro Espaol and to hear Julio Estrada eloquently explain his work as composer, author, musical director and occasional singer. His discussion of the genesis of the opera, which he began writing in 1992 and finished in 2006, its relationship to Juan Rulfos famous novel, and the three levels of music and dialogue in the piece was fascinating, and once again I was eager to see the production. He noted the collaboration not only of singers trained in Stuttgart, Germany, but of performers of eleven different nationalities. Following the Spanish premiere, the opera is scheduled for performances in Stuttgart, Mexico and Venice. Also participating in the press conference were Sergio Vela, theatrical director of the production; Ignacio Garca, assistant artistic director of the Teatro Espaol; and Xavier Gell, artistic director of the new Operadhoy (Opera Today) cycle. Unfortunately, I found the performance of the opera to be less intriguing than the press conference. The review in El Pas for opening night reported that part of the audience applauded wildly while the other spectators remained respectfully silent. The same phenomenon occurred on the evening I attended. It is likewise difficult to disagree with the El Pas assessment that Murmullos del Pramo would be less repetitive and hence more seductive were it one hour instead of two (actually one hour forty minutes). The ghostly singers do not sing in any traditional sense, nor do the musicians on stage or the electronic equipment at the back of the auditorium produce anything resembling traditional opera music. In general the sounds are truly other worldly (the moans of the deceased), death knells, or the reflections of nature. Instrumentalists included trombone, guitar, bass viol, sho (Japanese reed instrument, played by Ko Ishikawa) and a ruidista (sound artist, Lloren Barber). Particular singers took multiple roles and

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La curva de la felicidad finds Quino (Pablo Carbonell) with some new roommates: Antonio Vico, Jess Cisneros and Josu Ormaetxe. Photo: courtesy Secuencia 3 Artes y Comunicacin

some roles were conveyed by more than one artist. For example, Susana was represented by sopranos Sarah Maria Sun and, as Susanas murmur, by Susanne Leitz-Lorey. The acclaimed Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, whose health was in question relative to the Madrid performance, was given the role of a Voice that could be eliminated if necessary. She did participate, sitting in a box seat adjacent to the stage. Of greater interest than the music, at least to me, were the lighting, choreography and other visual effects. The immense grief of the title character was vividly portrayed in dance. When Pedro Paramos beloved Susana San Juan dies, the bed in which she lies is raised higher and higher while her long skirts flow over its sides. A number of Spanish dramatists are concerned that public theatres in Madrid tend to bypass them. Playwright Concha Romero suggests that there should be a quota for new plays by Spanish authors, like the quota for Spanish movies that keeps the nations film industry from being swallowed up by Hollywood movies. The old Sala Olimpia, one-time home of the National Center for New Tendencies of the Stage, has been razed; in its place at the Plaza de Lavapies is the National Drama Centers Valle-Incln Theatre, named for one of Spains great dramatists of the twentieth century. The Valle-Incln has two auditoriums, the 510-seat mainstage and the 150-seat theatre named in honor

of Francisco Nieva, one of contemporary Spains greatest playwrights. When I was in Madrid the mainstage was featuring Cruel and Tender by British playwright Martin Crimp, and the smaller auditorium was offering Tennessee Williamss Suddenly Last Summer. The production about to open at the National Drama Centers flagship theatre, the Mara Guerrero, was Brechts The Good Person of Setzuan. With public theatres turning their attention abroad, many Spanish playwrights find themselves limited to little fringe theatres or are forced to form their own companies. La curva de la felicidad, o La crisis de los 40 (Beer-Belly, Or the Mid-life Crisis) is proof that living Spanish authors can succeed in the commercial theatre. Co-written by Eduardo Galn and Pedro Gmez, and directed by Celso Cleto, their Portuguese collaborator, it was co-produced by Secuencia 3 Artes y Comunicacin, a project with which Galn is closely associated. It opened at the 429-seat Lara Theatre on 27 September 2005, was still doing well at the end of the season, and was scheduled for a summer tour. A light but intelligent piece, reflective of contemporary society, La curva de la felicidad might be compared to the new boulevard comedy in Paris of an author like Jean-Marie Chevret [See WES 17.1]. In the tradition of bourgeois farce, the rapid action is marked by frequent phone calls, loud ringing of the door buzzer, humor-

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ous misunderstandings, and comic contrasts in character. Contributing to the success of the play is a cast of four talented actors (Pablo Carbonell, Antonio Vico, Josu Ormaetxe, and Jess Cisneros), all of whom are well known for their work in television series as well as in theatre. In recent years, numerous comedies in Spain, France, and elsewhere have dealt with the situation of middle-aged wives whose husbands have left them for younger women. La curva de la felicidad provides the reverse image of this situation: Quino (Carbonell) is a scriptwriter whose life is shattered when his wife Carmen leaves him for a more attractive man because he has become fat and bald. In his distraught state, Quino is faced not only with writers block but reluctantly is forced to sell the couples apartment. Like Chevrets character in Faux dpart, Quino initially tries to discourage potential buyers. Then he proceeds to promise the place to two of them (his producer, who is also his best friend, and the husband of his wifes psychiatrist). Ultimately these three men, as well as the man Carmen has hired to retrieve her things, all find themselves single and homeless. Somewhat reminiscent of the women in Chevrets Les Amazones, they decide to live together, share expenses, and create a new-style family. Left to his own devices, Quino is increasingly sloppy. The psychiatrists soon-to-be-ex-husband (who is also a psychiatrist) is obsessively neat. Expanding on the pattern of Neil Simons The Odd Couple, Galn and Gmez build a series of such contrasts: for example, Quino is out of shape in comparison to the movers athleticism. Just as the audience begins to relish the problems this odd quartet of mismatched personalities will no doubt encounter in their life together, a message from Carmen informs Quino that she has decided to come back. The ending is thus an open one. The National Company for Classic Theatre usually focuses on plays from Spains Golden Age and dramatists such as Lope de Vega (1562-1635) and Caldern (1600-81) [WES 12.3]. The company, founded in 1986, was housed at the centrally-located Teatro de la Comedia with Adolfo Marsillach as its first director; its current director is Eduardo Vasco, and while the home theatre remains under renovation, performances are given at the 670-seat Teatro Pavn. The slightly less convenient location has not affected attendance; there was a full house when I attended a delightful performance of Ramn de la Cruzs sainetes on Thursday, 11 May.

I have found references to a 1988 revival of several Ramn de la Cruz skits, performed under the title De Madrid, al cielo (From Madrid to Heaven) in El Escorial and in Madrid on the 200th anniversary of the death of King Charles III. Except for that passing production, Ramn de la Cruz has not been staged with any regularity since the early twentieth century. Given the enthusiastic response to these sparkling sainetes, adapted and directed by well-known playwright Ernesto Caballero, that situation is likely to change. Using a metatheatrical framework to provide a unifying strand for four farces, Caballero creates the story of a theatrical company, directed energetically by Juan Carlos Talavera [See WES 15.2], that turns to sainetes as a possible solution when a church official will not let them perform the play they have rehearsed. The farces they improvise are La ridcula embarazada (The Silly Pregnant Woman), El almacn de novias (The Shop of Brides), La Repblica de las mujeres (The Womens Republic), and Manolo, tragedia para rer o sainete para llorar (Manolo, a Tragedy to Make You Laugh, Or a Farce to Make You Cry). Of the four, only the Manolo skit is likely to be familiar to audience members, who may have read it in school. The frame play ends when the acting company begins their real performance with their backs turned to the contemporary audience as they face a line of twinkling footlights upstage. A cast of sixteen actors and four musicians, all wearing period costumes designed by Javier Artiano, perform the skits with two intermissions. The visually-pleasing production is enlivened by singing, dancing (choreographed by Pilar Andjar), and considerable slapstick humor. The versatile set, designed by Jos Luis Raymond, featured wood strips of white and varying shades of tan and brown on the three walls and on three wide downstage steps that were creatively used in performance. During the fourth skit, which is grotesque in tone, a Goyesque painting was projected on the upstage wall. The music, under the direction of Alicia Lzaro, deserves special mention. A specialist in Renaissance and Baroque music, she located the original scores of some 140 sainetes of Ramn de la Cruz in Madrids municipal archives. Some of the authentic pieces performed in this production had not been heard for many years. De la Cruz authored original works in several genres and translated texts from French, but he is best remembered for the more than 200 farcical

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Ramn de la Cruzs La Repblica de las mujeres. Photo: courtesy National Company for Classic Theatre

skits he wrote for acting companies to perform during intermissions of serious plays. Given the wealth of texts to choose from, it is not surprising that Caballero gives his contemporary audience an entertaining variety of these eighteenth-century pieces. La ridcula embarazada highlights the absurd whims of a pregnant woman and the efforts of her foppish husband to indulge her. The cast includes aristocrats, their servants, and a comic doctor; Caballero notes a certain similarity to Molire. On the other hand, Caballero suggests that El almacn de novias anticipates the absurdist humor and overt theatricalism of Francisco Nieva. In this skit, a man who has gained custody of eight unmarried women, all with different but equally difficult personalities, offers them one by one to a man who wishes to marry but cannot find a suitable bride. La Repblica de las mujeres, inspired perhaps by French models, creates a utopia governed by women, who subjugate any men who venture

near their islanduntil they succumb to the masculine charms of their captives. Manolo is a parody of heroic tragedies whose characters are lower class ruffians from Madrids Lavapis district; by plays end, the stage is littered with corpses. Caballero astutely observes that this skit is a forerunner of the grotesque tragicomedies of Valle-Incln. The actors in the excellent cast for Sainetes play multiple roles: as actor-characters in the company responding to the crisis posed by the censor and as characters in each of the several plays within the play. Even the four musicians (two violins, cello and pianoforte) at times leave their positions adjacent to the stage to participate in the action. While neither of the experimental productions I saw at the Teatro Espaol during my week in Madrid can be expected to appeal to a wide audience, the sparkling comedy of Galn and Gmez and the brilliantly staged sainetes of Ramn de la Cruz are evidence that theatre is alive and well in Spains capital.

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Invaders in the Castle: Odin Teatrets Ur-Hamlet at Kronborg Castle, Elsinore, Denmark
Kurt Taroff It would be hard to imagine a performance with a more complex pedigree than Odin Teatrets Ur-Hamlet. Eugenio Barba presents us with the thirteenth-century Danish legend, written by SaxoGrammaticus, which, through one or more intermediaries, provided Shakespeare with the story for what many consider his greatest work. The performance took place in the city of Elsinore, in Kronborg Castle, Shakespeares ostensible setting for his Hamlet, though it could not have been the home of Saxo-Grammaticuss Amlethus, as the castle was completed in 1577. It was likely rumors of the castles imposing stature gleaned from returning travelers, rather than any personal knowledge, that led Shakespeare to set the play here. Finally, in this great Danish epic cum British classic, Barbas UrHamlet (in accordance with his usual practice) featured actors representing a wide array of nations and traditions, including Balinese Gambuh, Japanese Noh, and Afro-Brazilian Orix performers. Both beautiful and imposing, Kronberg Slot stands on the coast of Denmark, with Sweden visible across the strait. After several decades as a royal residence, it spent the majority of its history as a massive toll booth, collecting funds from ships in return for safe passage through the resund Strait. The castle now serves as home to the Danish Maritime Museum, a museum for the castle itself, and a small portion of underground cellars open to public view. The castles courtyard, where the performance took place, first hosted a production of Hamlet in 1816, to commemorate the bicentennial of Shakespeares death, and did so once again a hundred years later. Hamlet was seen here annually from 1937-39, 1946-54, and has been performed regularly (though not annually), since 1979. Directors and performers seen in Kronborgs courtyard have included Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, Richard Burton, Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, Simon Russell Beale, and Eimuntas Nekrosius. Though not designed as a theatre, of course, the space has a natural power and charm; we may know that its not really Hamlets castle, but nevertheless, it is. Saxo-Grammaticuss account (or creation) of the story of Amlethus, written in 1200, presents us with a plot (and a hero) far more driven than that which Shakespeare crafted. Most significantly, the indecision, moral justification, and self-doubt that are the most salient characteristics of Shakespeares hero are nowhere to be found in his Danish model. To the extent that Amlethus hesitates before taking revenge on his uncle, Fengi, for the killing of his father, Orvendil, it is a strategic move, ensuring that he takes action at the moment that will most ensure his success. Saxo-Grammaticuss text provides models for many of the characters of Shakespeares play, including Polonius (a counselor to Fengi tries to eavesdrop on a conversation between Amlethus and his mother, and is not only killed, but eaten by the prince), Ophelia (Amlethuss foster-sister, who later becomes his lover), and Laertes (Amlethuss foster-brother, who serves to help Amlethus in his deception of Fengi). But while Shakespeares text gives us a hero paralyzed by moral doubt and grieving for his father, Amlethus bears his misfortunes with determination and cunning, willing himself to ultimately defeat Fengi, and ascend to the Danish throne. Barbas production begins with a procession of musicians and dancers who will ultimately make up a sort of chorus. The drama commences as Saxo-Grammaticus himself (played by Julia Varley) enters, unfurling a blanket containing the disordered bones of a skeleton, which, we are told, are the remains of Hamlet, whose story we will now witness. This will be the only speaking part in the production, as Saxo-Grammaticus introduces each scene, less a narrator than a sort of Brechtian Herald informing us of the central thrust of each scene, which is then performed in movement and dance. As the pantomimic scene unfolds before us, Barba creates a clever and arresting visual image, having Saxo-Grammaticus reassemble the skeleton of Hamlet, a metaphor both of the re-membering of the tale that we are witnessing, as well as the reconstruction of the lineage of Shakespeares masterpiece. And while he successfully integrates this skeleton into the performance, it also allows him the opportunity to play upon the spectators associations with Hamlet, as the skull, iconically connected to Shakespeares play through a long history of To be or not to be soliloquies in which Hamlet is pictured holding and gazing into the eyes of a skull,

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The last image of Ur-Hamlet: Augusto Omol as Hamlet, with Akira Matsui as his loyal warrior friend, Julia Varley as SaxoGrammaticus, and Roberta Carrei as Gerutha. Photo: Kurt Taroff

becomes an ever-present semiotic chain connecting Barbas reimagining of Saxo-Grammaticuss original text to the history of Hamlet in production. The Saxo-Grammaticus character recreates the iconic image, as Julia Varley stares into the eyes of the skull, and though he never does attempt to mimic that image, Hamlet (Augusto Omol) ends the play with the skull in hand. In almost pageant-like fashion, each character is introduced with a promenade around the playing space, each with their own style of dance and musical accompaniment. Barba closely follows Saxo-Grammaticuss narrative, injecting a style (and some small inventions) all his own. A particularly odd example of such invention is the fifth episode, titled/described by Barba and announced by the Saxo-Grammaticus character as Foreigners Invade the Castle. They come from countries far away, has no obvious parallel in the original text. This deviation is exacerbated by the fact that while the production has, thusfar, in typical Barba fashion, presented us with characters in a variety of ornate costumes representing various cultures and international traditions, the invaders enter the stage en

masse and begin to wander about looking like typical European tourists, laden with shopping bags and looking rather confused. Barba may be commenting ironically on the place of the performance Kronborg certainly does find itself invaded by foreigners, largely European touristsbut Barba does not integrate this irony into the narrative, nor offer an explanation as to the significance of this deviation from the source. Indeed, a similar lack of rationale for his choices might well be said to get in the way of Barbas overall ambition for the production. Barba is well known for his desire to integrate actors from various national and cultural traditions. But, at least in this production, it must be asked whether he has in fact integrated these actors into a seamless and coherent whole, or rather just juxtaposed them to the detriment of all. This problem is most apparent in the productions climactic scene, as Hamlet returns to Denmark, prepared to take power from his uncle, Fengi. While Fengi is played by I Wayan Bawa, a Balinese Gambuh performer, his nephew Hamlet is played by Augusto Omol, a black Brazilian Candombl performer. In returning to Denmark,

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Hamlet has brought with him a loyal warrior, played by Akira Matsui, a Noh actor. Each of these actors is costumed in the traditional garb corresponding to their national performance tradition. The result is a bizarre spectacle which, rather than seamlessly melding these national traditions, emphasizes their differences, so that it becomes difficult to see this climactic battle scene as anything other than cartoonish: at best, an international dance-off, at worst, a representation of world conflict, with the South Pacific on the one side and Africa and Japan on the other. Furthermore, while Barba utilizes these actors and their varied styles for their creativity and virtuosity, the use of these venerable traditions (and of the costumes which accompany them) rings a note of primitivism, particularly considering the source material and Barbas return to the original Hamlet. Once again, these issues would be less disturbing if there were an apparent rationale for these decisions, but there is none. Barba is experimenting with different forms, and entertaining his audience with the spectacle of a panoply of national traditions on his stage; that appears to be the end of it.

Considerably more rationale is given for the alterations that Barba has made in SaxoGrammaticuss text. In a side-room in the castle, curators had mounted a display of set designs for Ur-Hamlet. Included in this display was what appeared to have been an early promotional poster for the production, noting the additional influence of Niccolo Machiavellis The Prince on the creative process. The Prince is not mentioned in the program, and no one who had not gone into this display would have been aware of its influence, but its impact could be seen in abundance. While SaxoGrammaticuss text clearly emphasizes the cycle of violence as inevitable and pervasive in a way that Shakespeares does not, Barbas interpretation far surpasses the original in its portrayal of Hamlet as a conniving, deceptive figure driven as much (if not more) by ambition and self-interest than in revenging his fathers murder. The ninth episode, Hamlet Dictates the Laws of A New Order, is presented in pantomime on stage, as in the rest of the production, but the program lists The Nine Rules of Hamlets New Order, and these include: Men and women submit to fear, money, and pleasure. Violence that

The Ur-Hamlet staged by Eugenio Barba at Kronborg Castle, Elsinore. Photo: Kurt Taroff

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frightens, money, and the offer of pleasure are the three main tools of government. Be loyal, but only towards yourself. Betrayal cannot be avoided. Betray, before being betrayed. These rules bear only a passing relevance to SaxoGrammaticuss text, but would fit comfortably into Machiavellis world-view. Barba, it seems, wishes to contrast the thoughtful and compassionate hero of Shakespeares play with a more primitive ethos of kill or be killed to be found in its forbear. In doing so, he seeks to emphasize the brutality and self-interest of man, rather than the creature of thought and compassion that Shakespeare exalts.

Hamlet, in Barbas vision, is no different from Fengi (or Claudius). It might well be said that Barba sees this baser vision of man as more accurate, even today. While the varied traditions on display may not make for a completely satisfying whole, they do make for a fascinating ninety minutes of performance. The dramatic setting of Kronborg Castle, the exquisite costumes designed by Jan de Neergaard, and the virtuosity and artistry of the varied cast of performers, held the audience in rapt attention. UrHamlet may not make for great drama, but it is a remarkable spectacle.

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Olivier Pys La Grande Parade

Barry Daniels The Great Parade was the title of the festival of work by noted author-director-actor, Olivier Py, housed at the Thtre du Rond-Point from 26 April through 3 June. Py, the artistic director of the Centre Dramatique National/Orlans-Loiret-Centre, based in Orlans, is one of the most prominent and prolific artists working in France today. The Festival included the Parisian premieres of his two most recent works, Comic Illusions and the epic (over 10 hours with intermissions) The Conquerors; a world premiere, Epistle to Young Actors; a program of two fairy tales adapted from the Grimms; cabaret performances of Songs for Paradise Lost; and the publication of a volume of the Rond-Point Notebooks devoted to Pys work. Comic Illusions, dedicated to the late playwright Jean-Luc Lagarce, is made up of Pys reflections on poetry and the art of the theatre. Originally titled Theatre Lessons, at two-and-one-half hours it seemed overlong and overwritten. The most successful parts of the evening were, in fact, the acting lessons given to the character of Aunt Genevive. Actor Michel Fau was quite wonderful in this drag role, and he proved to be a master clown during the sequences of the lessons. Py himself plays the much-honored poet who is viewed as the savior of humanity. The text alternates between long-winded philosophizing and comic antics. The latter were often quite entertaining and, as always, Pys staging was imaginative. The Conquerors was clearly influenced by Claudels The Satin Slippers, which Py staged in 2004. It is a trilogy possessing a vast poetic vision, clothed in florid language, made up of linked fables of passion and frustration. In the Prologue we are introduced to the protagonist, a young man, hiding in an armoire and spying on the prostitute Cythera, as she receives first Axel, a grave digger, and then the Prince. The young man becomes entranced with her smile. During his subsequent quest for the meaning of this smile he will assume the role of the Prince in the first play of the trilogy, that of Cythera in the second; and Axel in the third. In the first and most topical play of the trilogy, The Stars of Arcadia, Prince Florian leads a conspiracy against the General, a military dictator of what seems to resemble a Balkan state. He hopes to put a democracy in place. Ferrare, a capitalist whose fortune was made as an owner of brothels, has political ambitions and joins the conspiracy. Ferrare falls in love with Florian, who has fallen in love with Lysias, a refugee womans son, who is also involved in the conspiracy. Florian reveals to Ferrare that he is not the true Prince. In revenge for being spurned, Ferrare exposes Florian, and returns the country back into the hands of the General. In the first section of the trilogy the themes are sketched in. Florians quest to understand Cytheras smile is the eternal quest of the poet for beauty. The mute Lysias, who returns Florians love, sacrifices himself at the end of this section to save Florians life. The triangle Ferrare-FlorianLysias is the first of series of triangles involving passion and frustrated desire. And finally, the most obvious concern of the first part is the corruption of contemporary politics in a world where money determines values. In the second play, The Lost Mediterranean, the young man plays the role of Cythera, a prostitute in Grasse in the south of France, who has become a figure of erotic veneration. The General, now exiled the France, comes to her to regenerate his waning virility. His wife has followed him in hopes of regaining her power over him and their sons Septime, a student of philosophy, and Mozart, a composer, who are both enamored of Cythera. A venial Doctor and a grotesque poet, Parnasse, are part of Cytheras troupe. Ferrare and Lubna, one of his prostitutes and also his wife, have fled Arcadia and become Cytheras servants. This act involves a series of music hall numbers and comic turns performed in Cytheras Cabaret. The ceremony to restore the Generals virility fails, but Lubna steps in and succeeds. Grateful, the General signs over his estate to her. Ferrare loves Cythera (played by the same actor who played Florian in the first play) but is rejected by her. She in turn flees with Septime (played by the same actor who played Lysias in the first play) whom she loves. Ferrare captures and places Cythera in prison. The play ends as she is about to have her leg amputated. In The Crown of Olive Leaves, the final play of the trilogy, the actor who played Florian and Cythera now assumes the role of Axel, the grave digger, who now has a wooden leg. Ferrare appears as an abject figure who works in the morgue. A

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Michel Fau and Elizabeth Mazev in Illusions Comiques, directed and conceived by Olivier Py. Photo: Marc Enguerand

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problem develops when the corpse of a beautiful boy Axel loved disappears. It turns out to have been sold to Lubna, now director of a traveling company of actors, who wants a real corpse for one of her productions. The General, an aspiring politician, wants the corpse as he accidentally killed the boy in a moment of sexual ecstasy. Ferrare, who has become a devout Catholic, professes his love to the vehemently anti-religious Axel. Axel remains true to his love for the dead boy, but when he is about to die, Ferrare commits suicide so that his heart can be transplanted in Axel, thus saving his life. The Epilogue returns to the scene of the Prologue, Cytheras bedroom. A young man, dressed like the young man of the Prologue, spies on Cythera. Axel (still played by the actor who played the young man of the Prologue) has come back to tell Cythera that Ferrare, who made her a prostitute, is now dead. When the Prince is announced, Axel hides in the armoire with the young man. The trilogy concludes with a dialogue between them. Axel proclaims that the smile never existed and that he has nothing to teach the young man. Neither philosophy nor religion provides answers. Rather than loving my words, Axel says, you should love life. To live suffices. He concludes, There was in me a source of pure affirmations. From this source arose occasionally an inexpressible smile which did not deceive those who contemplated it. It is not love, it is Joy! The brutal Joy, born only of the death of Necessity. In opposition to the corrupt politics of the modern world and veniality, represented by the General, his wife and Lubna, Py places the celebration of Life itself. Love is represented by the eternal triangle of a lover whose beloved loves another person. The first and last plays of the trilogy conclude with a lover sacrificing his life for his beloved. My summary of the plot may make the action sound pretentious and verbose, but in Pys staging the trilogy is compelling and theatrically exciting. Pierre-Andr Weitz provided an intricate set which included two large structures designed to work as open frames or to be covered with facades, that were configured in a variety of ways to create different buildings. There were two large wheels of neon lights, a number of large stair units, and a wall across the back of the stage with an upper level opening in it. This wall could be moved from upstage to downstage. A large turntable occupied the center of the stage. The proscenium was framed

with white neon lights, and neon was also used on the edges of structural columns at the sides of the stage, which remained open to the wings and back wall. Since all the scenic units could be moved, the set was constantly changing during the ten hours of the production. Particularly beautiful was the opening scene of the third play, as the two neon wheels slowly rotated on the moving turntable, and Axel and Ferrare wove around them in graceful patterns. For the Cabaret scenes in the second play, a wide stairway led up to the upper stage in the wall unit that had been moved to center stage. This unit then rotated to reveal the backstage and dressing rooms of the Cabaret. Weitz also provided the black and white costumes; color was used sparingly. Cythera had a pink robe, the Generals wife wore a red fur coat, Lubna had red panties, and the Young Man in the Prologue and Epilogue wore a red tee shirt. The excellent cast included eleven men, three women and a child. Elizabeth Mazev was charming and voluptuous as Cythera in the Prologue and Epilogue, and she also played the scheming wife of the General in the second play and the brief role of Lysiass mother in the first play. The trio of revolutionaries in the first play were given distinct characters by Olivier Balazuc (Jude), Benot Guibert (Ormus) and Thomas Matalou (Nathan). Balazuc was particularly amusing as the bad poet Parnasse in the second play. Matalou subsequently appeared as Mozart in the second play, and an actor enamored of Lubna in the third. Guibert appeared as the Doctor and the Jailer in the second play and as a drugged-out Legist in the third. The three actors whose roles dominated the action of the trilogy were Christophe Maltot, Nazim Boudjenah and Frdric Giroutru. Boudjenah played Ferrare as a passionate power monger in the first play, a frustrated worshipper of Cythera in the second, and a stoic, converted Catholic in the third. Giroutru played Lysias in the first play, Septime in the second and the corpse in the third. Slender, with pale skin and red hair, he was dazzling in the scene in the first play when Florian makes him dance. Maltot was outstanding in the most complex performance of the trilogy. He started out as the young man in the Prologue. In the first play he performed the Prince as a passionate believer in democracy and a fervid defender of poetry. He was a cool and sensual Cythera in the second, and finally appeared as the defeated, nihilistic Axel in the third play and the Epilogue. Maltot beautifully expressed the different registers of each character before returning the

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young man of the Prologue. The continuity of having these three actors play the same role in the three love triangles that are central in each play was a brilliant choice on the part of the director. The Conquerors represents Py at his very best. He created characters and actions that suc-

cessfully embodied his grandiose vision. The constantly changing visual images, arresting and beautiful, helped make the long day of theatre bearable. His talented cast made each character believable and spoke his often poetic text beautifully. This was certainly one of the best productions Ive ever seen.

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Contributors
MARVIN CARLSON, Sidney C. Cohn Professor of Theatre at the City University of New York Graduate Center, is the author of many articles on theatrical theory and European theatre history and dramatic literature. He is the 1994 recipient of the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism and the 1999 recipient of the American Society for Theatre Research Distinguished Scholar Award. His book, The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine, which came out from University of Michigan Press in 2001, received the Callaway Prize. In 2005 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens. His most recent book is Speaking in Tongues (Michigan, 2006). BARRY DANIELS is a retired Professor of Theatre History. He has written extensively on the French Romantic Theatre. His book, Le Dcor de thtre lpoque romantique: catalogue raisonn des dcors de la ComdieFranaise, 1799-1848, was recently published by the Bibliothque nationale de France. He is currently working on a study of the Thtre de la Rpublique, 1791-1799 and an exposition on this topic at the Museum of the French Revolution at the Chteau de Vizille from 20 April to 16 July 2007. JEAN DECOCK is a professor of French Literature with a Ph.D. from UCLA, where he wrote his thesis on Michel de Ghelderode. After teaching at UCLA, UC-Berkeley and UNLV, he is now retired, splitting his time between Paris and New York. He was the editor for the French Review on African Literature and Film for many years. MARIA M. DELGADO is Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts at Queen Mary, University of London and coeditor of the Routledge journal Contemporary Theatre Review. Her books include: Other Spanish Theatres: Erasure and Inscription on the Twentieth Century Spanish Stage (2003), three co-edited volumes for Manchester University Press, and two collections of translations for Methuen. She is currently working on a book on Federico Garca Lorca for Routledge. STEVE EARNEST is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Theater at Coastal Carolina University in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He has previously published articles and reviews in WES, Theatre Journal, Theatre Symposium, New Theatre Quarterly, and Opera Journal. A practitioner as well as a writer, he is a member of AEA, SAG and SSDC. ROY KIFT is a British playwright living in Germany. His play Camp Comedy, on the fate of the German artist and film director Kurt Gerron in the Nazi concentration camp at Theresianstadt, premiered at the SUNY-Geneseo in the spring of 2003. GLENN LONEY is Professor Emeritus of Theatre at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. He is Senior Correspondent of NYTheatre-Wire.com and of NYMuseums.com, and Founder/Advisor of Modern Theatre.info, based on his chronology of British and American theatre, Twentieth Century Theater [Facts on File]. His fifty-year archive of art, architecture, history and design photos he has made worldwide is now online at INFOTOGRAPHY.biz. His digitally-preserved audio-interviews with performing arts personalities will soon be online at ArtsArchive.biz, along with press photos of major theatre, dance and opera productions. He is the author of numerous books, including his latest, Peter Brook: From Oxford to Orghast. KURT TAROFF is the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Drama at Washington University in St. Louis. After defending his dissertation, The Minds Stage: Monodrama as Historical Trend and Interpretive Strategy, he received his Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center in July 2005. He has been published in Slavic and East European Performance and The Journal of the Pirandello Society of America. He has also done extensive editorial work, serving as the Managing Editor of Slavic and East European Performance and as Assistant Editor for several books published by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.

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PHILIPPA WEHLE is the author of Le Thtre populaire selon Jean Vilar and Drama Contemporary: France and of the upcoming Act French: Contemporary Plays from France. Professor Emeritus of French and Drama Studies at Purchase College, SUNY, she writes widely on contemporary theatre and performance. She is a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. PHYLLIS ZATLIN is a professor of Spanish and coordinator of translator/interpreter training at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She served as Associate Editor of Estreno from 1992-2001 and as editor of the translation series ESTRENO Plays from 1998-2005. Her translations that have been published and/or staged include plays by J.L. Alonso de Santos, Jean-Paul Daumas, Eduardo Manet, Paloma Pedrero, and Jaime Salom. Her most recent book is Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation: A Practitioners View.

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