Blind Date (Schauspielhaus Graz)

This review is for the Thursday, May 19th, 2011 performance of Blind Date by Theo Van Gogh which took place at the Schauspielhaus Graz Hauptbühne.

Acting - 8.5/10
Direction - 9.5/10
Design - 9.5/10
Sound - 8/10
Affectiveness - 9/10

Overall - 9/10

     This play is based on a film, which I never saw, but now I believe I might want to see after experiencing this thought-provoking production of Blind Date at the Schauspielhaus Graz. Someone seeing this production without knowing that it was originally a movie would find no markers of a bad movie-to-stage adaption.

Pom (August Zirner) alone in his club.

     The stage was well used and the set was never boring (thanks to Stage Designer Jens Burde). The set consists of a bar and a small vaudevillian stage which gives the effect of a basement club. What makes the stage design remarkable is that the bar moves between scenes without the need of stagehands (in the style of musicals). There were only three actors in this piece, adding another person to move the set would have destroyed the close almost clauserphobic relationship between the three characters. The set also employed the use of the Drehbühne (Rotating Stage) which added to the sometimes chaotic nature of the piece and it allowed for quick scene shifts, ultimately giving us the feeling that time has now moved on.
     The acting was strong by all three members of the cast. Stefan Suske as the Waiter gave the main story of the dysfuntional couple a human backbone, although, he was a silent observer most of the time, a type of wallflower. Suske showed us a lonely middle aged workhorse, who, despite having clear romantic interest in Katja, almost appears as a their child by being too nervous to interrupt his parent's bickering. This is ironic given that the story revolved around the main characters' inability to be normal and functional human beings after the tragic loss of their child.

Left to right: Zirner, Suske, and Krautz.

     Steffi Krautz, who plays Katja, and August Zirner, playing Pom, have the arduous task of presenting two distraught and distroyed people trying despirately to reignite their once loving relationship. Krautz and Zirner showed the many layers of grief: hysteria, utter sadness, blame, denile, anger, and need. These were real people experiencing pain so deep that they cannot reintergrate themselves normally into society or continue to function as a family. Both actors captured our attention and sympathy, showing that theatrical tragedy isn't just about kings or salesmen, but it's a result of sad life events that go unresolved and build into something unbearable. My only criticism about the acting of the two principle actors is that sometimes I felt they were hopping from emotion to emotion. Krautz would go from expressing something dark and then automatically switching to happy denile. The transition between the darkness and happy denile was completely missing, or shall I say jumped over. It didn't just happen once, it happened often. The grey areas were rushed - the most interesting and vulerable part of the human condition was compressed. This rushing emotions was sometimes disjointing to me, almost like a Brechtian Gestus in that I was snapped out my empathy and was reminded that I was watching actors portray grieving characters. I'm sure not everyone experienced this, but nevertheless the grey zones, aka transitions, was something I would have liked to experience more of.
     The story flowed, the characters moved from scene to scene with great ease and the meaning of the piece, I believe, was received by all audience members. This all adds up to good directing.
     Bernadette Sonnenbichler, the director, used sound effects greatly to the piece's advantage. The start of the story is a bit hard to get into because the huge stage is only inhabited by three actors, our eye wanders around looking for more actors, or our brain is caught thinking about the wonderful dinner we just had. This is where the use of music and sound can immediately take our mind out of our unrelated thoughts and plant our interest into the actors and the story. Many times the acordian music gave a feeling of a french film and immediately my mind was filled with conventionally french ideas of great love and great loss. Interestingly enough, that's what the play was about (I did not read a synopsis beforehand).
     Overall, this is a very interesting and affective piece of theatre. It's a puzzle to figure out at first, but once the pieces start to fall into place the audience is left to experience the looming downfall of these two shattered people. Shattered because of the loss of their child, loss of their relationship, and lost grip on reality. This play is tragic and leaves you without much joy. In regards to that thought, tragedy is meant to be cathartic, it gives you hope and influences you to not take loved ones for granted. This show did that.

Das geheime Tagebuch des Adrian Mole (Next Liberty)

This review is for the Wednesday, May 11th, 2011 performance of Das geheime Tagebuch des Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend which was put on by the Next Liberty theatre troup in Graz.

Acting - 9/10
Direction - 10/10
Design - 10/10

Sound - 8/10
Affectiveness - 9/10

Overall - 9.5/10

  

      Next Liberty is the children's theatre division of the Theatre Holding in Graz (which includes the Schauspielhaus as well as the Opera) for those who are unfamiliar with the company. Initially I was wary about seeing a children's theatre production because many times they can be seriously cheesy but this production was not that. There were the occasional fromage moments but the were wonderfully incorporated into the story. 

     The point of children's theatre is to entertain and to educate in a way that makes the text easy to understand for the young (and old). This company did just that. I was never left questioning why or how or what on earth is going on. 

Start of the play. New Year's Eve.

     The acting was strong by the entire cast. Each actors physicality was so expressive an almost clown-like at times. The story was not only told through their words but their body moved to illustrate a lot of what was being said as if each character was 1/4 mime. It worked brilliantly. I was smiling and eager to see what the actors would do next and I was always surprised by their enactments. Exciting and engaging. Only sometimes I wished for a little more depth because there were hints at it, but then quickly snapped back to pantomime. I understand that it was to make the issue of divorce less troubling for the audience, but at the same time I'm sure a little bit more exploration of the dark side of things only would have benefited the production.

     The stage was dressed like an apartment from the late 1970s early 1980s and really gave that sitcom feel which went wonderfully with the sitcom-like direction (without a laugh track - thank god). Furniture pieces were moved around by the title character Adrian Mole during his monologue breaks in a very Brechtian manner. This illustrated to the audience that this is a story and Adrian our point of perspective, just in case we got wrapped up with the divorce storyline from the side of the Mr. & Mrs. Mole.

     Regardless of the children's theatre aspect of this company, this production is a harmony of great acting, well thought out direction and eye catching design. (I especially like the pet dog).

     This production is a must see for anyone who wants a good 2 hours and a renewed appreciation for the art of entertaining the yound and old.

Hamlet (Schauspielhaus Graz)

This review is for the Friay, May 13th, 2011 performance of Hamlet by William Shakespeare at the Schauspielhaus Graz - Hauptbühne.

Acting - 8/10
Direction - 8/10
Design - 9/10
Sound - 9/10
Affectiveness - 8/10

Overall - 8.5/10

     You say Hamlet and immediately I think....great.....that show. I am always a bit reluctant to see a stage production of this play simply because, being an actor, I know the script really well and naturally have my preconceived motions of how it could be played. This reluctance is so silly because within the first few minutes of any Hamlet production I am won over and remember how nice and refreshing it is to see different version of such a well known story. And this production delievered just that.
     This production opened with Act 1 Scene 2 which was a direct jump into the story. I also believe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were brought in a bit eariler than in the normal script (switching scenes?) and there were other cuts in this version of the play. All in all, I think the performance script was well cut and easy to follow.

Hamlet and Horatio talking about the Ghost

     The production's design was ultramodern and minimalistic. The backdrop and side curtains were made out of a transluscent white plastic material that gave a blank cavnas for all the symbolic special effect of dropping clothing from the ceiling. At various points throughout the show clothing fell from the sky, an effect that worked wonderfully. For example, after Ophelia's death, when Gertude delievers the account of the death, black pieces of sheer fabric slowly drifted from the sky giving the effect of a dark rain, a new take on pathetic fallacy. I was always interested to see what would drop because it was always colour-coded to deal with the feelings expressed in a given scene. By the end of the play there was so much clothing and fabric litering the floor that it was like a deep rough or swamp. This may have been a metaphor for the building tragedy and ensnaring treatchery.

Gertrude asks who Hamlet is talking to

     The acting was strong all round except for a few weak points like Ophelia's screaming craziness (played by Claire Sobottke - it just got too much), or Laertes' overexpressive hand movements (played by Rahul Chakraborty - no other actor was acting like that...and it didn't harmonize with the minimalist feeling of the show). Polonius (Franz Xaver Zach) was played with such care, he was a very loving father and a most loyal advisor to the king not like the bumbling old fool he is sometimes portrayed as. It was refreshing to see him as a strong character. Birgit Stöger showed a Gertrude who truly deteriorated as the play progressed, slowly injesting more and more alcohol and collapsing into herself with a broken heart. Claudius (Stefan Suske) was regal, arrogant, but sometimes overshadowed by Gertrude (she was also taller than him) which made him seem a weaker character than he ought to be. Guildenstern and Rosencratz (Alexander Knaipp and Gustav Koenigs) in particular stole the show almost during the play-within-the-play scene because they played the parts of 'Claudius' and 'Gertrude' both respectfully. These two brought enjoyment and played with such happiness that made the audience laugh. Nothing is worse than sitting through a tragedy that doesn't at least have one part that makes me laugh ['Why so serious?']. Finally, Hamlet performed by Claudius Körber was very believeable and interesting. It was nice to see someone under 30 play this role and with such precision like someone in his late 40s. Sometimes crazy, sometimes emo, sometimes fool-like, sometimes calm, Körber gave us a complex Hamlet as he should be played.
     The direction by Theu Boermans was simplistic, modern and percise giving us a very understandable and affective story. We didn't have to waste time with elaborate scene changes, or moving into different rooms of the castle. The actors showed us a scene change through the way  interacted with each other or the stage. I particularly liked that after the opening speech by Claudius it seemed as if the afterparty for his emalgimation took place behind the white transluscent curtain which added a very nice dimension to the all the business between Hamlet, Horatio and the Ghost. The Ghost never actually appeared by the way, we only heard the Ghosts voice.
     The sound effects were echoing cords played when the tension heightened within the piece which gave a nice veseral effect, a sense of suspense.
     Overall, the show was well exectued, interesting and memorable. Definately a production for people who don't know anything about Hamlet or those who want to see something different than Sir Lawrence Olivier's or Kennth Branagh's version of Elsinore. Young people who are experiencing Hamlet for the first time on stage (having maybe just read it in school) might be wondering where the castle is, and what's up with the dropping clothing. But don't let that deter you from seeing this great rendition of Shakespeare's masterpiece.

Peer Gynt (Schauspielhaus Graz)

This review is for the Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 performance of Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen from the Hauptbühne at the Schauspielhaus in Graz.

Acting - 6/10
Direction - 6/10
Design - 7/10
Affectiveness - 3/10

Overall - 6/10

I had never seen or read Peer Gynt prior to experiencing this performance and in the case of Ingo Berk's mosaic of a production, that was probably a good thing.

Stage. Inside a ship or coffin.

I had difficulty understanding the story. Granted it was in German and occationally I have difficultly understanding certain words but in the case of this production its the story-telling that suffers not my language proficiency. I am a great fan of Henrik Ibsen and have read many of his other plays but something about this production seemed unusual, un-Ibsen-esque. At first, I thought 'Well you don't know everything Victoria, maybe Ibsen did write Peer Gynt in sets of disorganized scenes asking for three different actors to play the title character simultaneously.' However, that thought didn't feel right, Ibsen wrote many naturalistic plays and even those plays that weren't very naturalistic still had character with archs and stories with plots that were directly based on the idea cause-and-effect. This production was lacking that throughline.

It was when I got home and had a look at the actual play that I realized Berk's performance text was nothing like Ibsen's script. Berk had taken the play and put it into a blender! Claudius Körber played the Peer from Act 1-3, Sebastian Reiß from Act 4, and Gerhard Balluch the elder Peer from Act 5. The acts were inwoven; the play started with the beginning of the 5th Act. It's this patchwork of plot that left myself, and many audience members, questioning the plot. Many of us lost the meaning of the play and were left with just visually interesting affects from odd juxtapositions.

The 3 Peer Gynts: Claudius Körber, Gerhard Balluch, and Sebastian Rieß

Having the 3 Peers on the stage together reminded me of the final act of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, where both the events of the early 1800's and late 1900's get enacted in the same room at the same time, where members of each time period use the exact same properties (eg. Wine Glass) which creates a tension between our understanding of time and space. There is a wonderful journal article written on this topic I found in a drama journal in university on Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the fifth wall (can't quite remember what it was called, but it was great). This sharing time and space in something unique to theatre and I am assuming Berk major draw to splitting Peer into 3 roles. The convention sort of worked and sort of didn't. It gave the audience the stages of man in plain sight, so we are confronted the central theme of aging head on. However, the effect wasn't strong enough. Frankly, the script alone delivers that message, pretty bluntly actually, so all the division of Peer into 3 actors and the mixing of scenes did was was confuse and ultimately take away from the playwrights artifice.

On the whole, the acting was good. But sometimes it felt too out there and sometimes too safe. The ensemble did a great job of giving each small role they played a very specific character which gave the production life as well as kept me interested in the piece. Claudius Körber had an odd vocal rhythm which made him hard to understand. Also his character arch was non-existant, it didn't seem as if his Peer learned anything through the THREE acts he played. Sebastian Rieß was bold and eye catching, but when left alone without some other actor to work off of  he was somewhat dull and out of place (maybe a fault of the direction?). Gerhard Balluch had the task of making the audience believe the other two Peers were a part of his Peer's past which wasn't always believeable except for the Onion monologue. The onion monologue, because of it's story telling nature highlighted the different actors giving the audience a nice visual roadmap of the character which Balluch supplied for us through a strong performance.

I wouldn't recommend this production to the casual or conservative theatre goer, only maybe to those who are familiar with the play and want to see a production that does what it wants with the plot. For a newby to Ibsen I would rather suggest they read the play.

My Long Absence

It has been a while since I last wrote a review, and to be honest, I was a tad lazy to begin with. I was really busy with work, life and rehearsals which didn't leave much time to see theatre let alone write reviews.

Things in my personal life have changed and now I have time to see a lot more theatre in Austria and I will discipline myself to write reviews and post them within a reasonable amount of time.

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Here's a sloppy recap of some of productions I saw within the last few months:


Private Lives by Noel Coward - The Old Vic, London
This production was really well concieved and done. The acting was exciting and the stage design was candy for my eyes. My family and I loved the show, although my mother wasn't all too fond of the story line. This production overall deserves 10/10 because it really was perfectly executed in all respects and memorable.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde - Vienna's English Theatre, Vienna
I am bias because I was rehearsing my own production of this very play at the same time as seeing this performance. I found the stage design odd, the acting by some of the principles rather weak (eg. Gwendolen) and the direction rather odd. Cecily was in control of the scene changes that a little girl with her doll house, very weird. The actors were clearly told to act out to the audience in a way that seemed highly artificial and reminiscent to how a Restoration Comedy may have been acted but not Oscar Wilde. Many jokes were lost, albeit some smaller ones found new life in this production. It wasn't a bad evening, I still enjoyed myself....but this production had the quality of a decent Arts University production with the price tag of something professional. I expected better. 6/10

Faschings Kaberet - Musical Güssing, Güssing
I like caberets but I did not like the unusual audience set up of this one. The line-up was good. Many/most of the pieces were written by the actors/comedians. I enjoyed myself, but I think there could have been some cuts to the performances because it seemed a but long and there were definately a few really boring parts. I'm sure alcohol would have helped that, but instead I opted for the Orange Juice (which wasn't really juice). Considering most people involved aren't professional performers, it was impressive. Also Florian Resetarits (see Kiss Me, Kate Review) sang some songs which was very pleasing to the ear. Overall 7/10 for a nice evening you do once a year.

Der Meister und Margarita by Michail Bulgakow - Schauspielhaus Graz, Graz
It is impossible to write a decent review on this production directed by Viktor Bodó, all I can say is see it if you have the opertunity too. At some parts you think to yourself, 'what on earth is going on?' and then you just let yourself be affected because the answers will come without you even having to really think about them. Thoroughly odd, and thoroughly enjoyable. Strong acting throughout and some interesting new actors from Hungary (I like the cat-man). In the final act, a white drop comes down that is backlit which projects everything that is happen behind it in shadow form. The stage behind is constantly turning and we see Expressionistic angles of the set mixed with the moving actors. The continue to act there piece (without talking) to music, while the audience watches it in shadow. Truly amazing and worthy of making Robert Lapage envious. 9/10 - must see.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde - The Pennyless Players, Literaturhaus Graz
This was the production that I got the lovely opertunity to direct. Obviously I can't give a review but I can say there is an audience for English Theatre in Graz. The Pennyless Players is a rather new group (founded in 2007) and is still on its path of finding itself as a theatre group. There was a lot of talent and many audience members had a very enjoyable evening. It was a pleasure directing my first show and I hope those involved and those who saw the performance walked aware with the satisfaction of an enjoyable production.