Our second German origin play in a week. (The Black Rider was the other.) This one was in German with surtitles.
A really excellent production that was visually arresting and totally fascinating. the cast were excellent and the staging was great. It is amazing how well a very modern production of an 18th century production worked.
The only problem was the audience - many seemed to be German speaking elderly people who were unfamiliar with theatre conventions - like not talking during the production!
I agree about the deaf old farts - I want a taser!
ReplyDeleteAlso the surtitles left a lot to be desired - out of sync with the actors' speech and hard to tell which character's "voice" was up there. They did a much better job at "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" in Sydney a few years ago. (No, the actors weren't speaking Strine - it was the Columbia National Theatre and the language was Spanish.)
However, despite the audience chatter and the amateur surtitles I really enjoyed this.
It was like a dance piece as the actors actions contradicted what was being said - and the plot synopsis in the program, which reflected the original story and not what the Deutsches Theater Berlin did with it. Unusual and neat. I'm glad we made the effort to see it.