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Theatre review
Nov. 7th, 2006 09:15 pmFirst off, let me begin with summarizing my own reactions:
Whoa.
Now, that that's over and done with, let me tell you all, my beloved audience, what brought such a reaction forth. Christa Wolf once wrote a play named Kassandra. This play now plays at the Jenaer theatre, and I used one of my two free tickets today to go see it together with a good friend here.
And we sit in the audience, watching what seems to be a sleazy, rundown hotel room most often used by disinterested prostitutes. Walls red velvet. A huge double bed in the center of the stage, and occasional utensils surrounding it: a couple of small drawer/tables, each with a lamp, a huge and clunky radiator, and a tray with food of some sort.
In comes Kassandra. Elegantly dressed in white pantsuit and wearing a polarfox around her shoulders. Interleaved with nervous breakdowns rivalling the loyal nazi hand belonging to Dr. Strangelove, she reflects on her life, her lovers, her family and the way that WAR! NOW! trumps all common sense and by far her own timid tries to speak sense with her environment. And she tells us about her almost deflowering in the temple of Apollo at the hands of Aeneas. Her love affair with Aeneas. Her relation to her father, and her mother, and to her various siblings. How the captain of the guard together with Paris gradually drove the Troian court more and more to an aggressive, warmongering stance. About being the only voice of reason, of doubt, the only one who didn't drink the koolaid and therefore, THEREFORE, the only person in all of Troy who would speak the absolute truth and whom noone, NOONE would believe one word.
She speaks of disappointments. Of rivalries. Of her friends, foes, family. Of passion and politics. And gives all the ancient tales of greeks and troians texture, familiarity, faces.
I walk, as so often otherwise, amazed out of the theatre house. Again, even though the piece had a blindingly modern scenography, although it was played in a fast and idiomrich german, and even though it had interludes making it difficult to even parse the spoken text, I have sat down, expecting entertainment and encountered enchantement. My own passion has been played, painted and pulled out of my own life and back several thousand years as were it a day, to follow Kassandra through her life.
If you have the possibility. In translation or somehow else. Make sure you get a chance to see Christa Wolf's Kassandra. It changes the way you view all the ancient tales.
Whoa.
Now, that that's over and done with, let me tell you all, my beloved audience, what brought such a reaction forth. Christa Wolf once wrote a play named Kassandra. This play now plays at the Jenaer theatre, and I used one of my two free tickets today to go see it together with a good friend here.
And we sit in the audience, watching what seems to be a sleazy, rundown hotel room most often used by disinterested prostitutes. Walls red velvet. A huge double bed in the center of the stage, and occasional utensils surrounding it: a couple of small drawer/tables, each with a lamp, a huge and clunky radiator, and a tray with food of some sort.
In comes Kassandra. Elegantly dressed in white pantsuit and wearing a polarfox around her shoulders. Interleaved with nervous breakdowns rivalling the loyal nazi hand belonging to Dr. Strangelove, she reflects on her life, her lovers, her family and the way that WAR! NOW! trumps all common sense and by far her own timid tries to speak sense with her environment. And she tells us about her almost deflowering in the temple of Apollo at the hands of Aeneas. Her love affair with Aeneas. Her relation to her father, and her mother, and to her various siblings. How the captain of the guard together with Paris gradually drove the Troian court more and more to an aggressive, warmongering stance. About being the only voice of reason, of doubt, the only one who didn't drink the koolaid and therefore, THEREFORE, the only person in all of Troy who would speak the absolute truth and whom noone, NOONE would believe one word.
She speaks of disappointments. Of rivalries. Of her friends, foes, family. Of passion and politics. And gives all the ancient tales of greeks and troians texture, familiarity, faces.
I walk, as so often otherwise, amazed out of the theatre house. Again, even though the piece had a blindingly modern scenography, although it was played in a fast and idiomrich german, and even though it had interludes making it difficult to even parse the spoken text, I have sat down, expecting entertainment and encountered enchantement. My own passion has been played, painted and pulled out of my own life and back several thousand years as were it a day, to follow Kassandra through her life.
If you have the possibility. In translation or somehow else. Make sure you get a chance to see Christa Wolf's Kassandra. It changes the way you view all the ancient tales.
