On arriving in Warsaw I was greeted with snow and near arctic temperatures . After a brief attempt to do tourist stuff regardless of the weather, I returned to the hostel to drink tea, vowing never to go outside again. Once the snow (and my feet) had thawed out, I headed to the theatre.
My destination was the Palace of Culture and Science in the centre of Warsaw. The domineering Soviet style building reaches high into the Warsaw skyline, and unfortunately the show I had booked seemed to be in the loft.
I won’t spend long describing what turned out to be a piece of incomprehensible performance art, especially for those without a grasp of Polish. A man in silk pyjamas yelled at a CCTV camera, two mad women dressed as Marilyn Monroe scrawled lipstick drawings onto the floor, and a young guy dressed as a gladiator flexed his muscles and pranced around reciting poetry. The audience laughed a lot - it was difficult to tell whether they found it funny or just plain awful.
One highlight worth the ticket price was a short piece in which a group of three women performed a cabaret act with the most realistic-looking puppets I have ever seen. Their faces seemed to have been moulded with some form of latex material which looked convincingly like real skin. The control of the puppets was so precise and well rehearsed I often forgot they weren’t real. They were also incredibly funny. Some of the dialogue was in English and the scene in which a Sigmund Freud puppet counsels a character after a disturbing dream involving an Obama puppet was pure genius.
My second night in Warsaw was spent at the National Theatre watching a production of Twelfth Night by a Bulgarian director. The set was made up of half a dozen empty glass bookshelves which served as doors, windows, entrances, exits, dressing rooms and hiding places. The space was lit from stage left onto a wall of mirrors on stage right, filling the whole stage with brilliant light. An onstage pianist provided a continuous accompaniment which was relentlessly repetitive and gave both tragic and comic scenes a rather similar tone.
My main issue with the production was that it took itself too seriously. There was almost no laughter from the crowd and moments of comedy in the text, such as the unravelling of the final plot, were treated as tragedy. Most flawed of all was the casting. The Duke Orsino was played by a portly sixty something year old gent. Surely nobody in the audience believed that the beautiful young Viola was really passionately in love with the man who at one point got yogurt stuck in his beard…ummm no!
Heading west to my final destination I felt hugely optimistic about what lay ahead in Berlin. My first night took me to the wonderful old Deutches Theatre for an adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The stage was a white box, but there was a slim chance of it staying white for long. The design concept could be described in one word: mud! Bucket loads of it. The small ensemble took on all the parts, distinguishing each character with a layer of mud make-up. The savages smeared it over their bodies and in their hair; the ship’s officers wiped mud sideburns onto their faces. It went everywhere.
No pun intended, this was an earthy production. There was a phenomenal soundtrack, brought to life by a mixture of recorded sound and the cast clanging metal as the chain gangs passed, and quietly tapping microphones to create the noise of the tub boat engine.
Some of the stage imagery was outstanding. About half an hour in, as Marlowe’s boat reached the jungle, six gigantic stone figures looking like ancient tribal statues descended from the fly. They were puppets whose huge heads gently turned to follow the action on stage. Later, during the jungle ambush, cannons were simulated by large tubes filled with smoke which were thumped like drums, sending blasts of smoke into the audience. Simple, but very effective. I was hit by one of these blasts seven rows back and really felt it!
Second night in Berlin and a trip to the Schaubuehne in Western Berlin. Founded in 1962 by four theatre directors, it is still one of the most buzzing and contemporary theatres in the city. The building oozes cool with its young audience, bold brand design and very alternative décor (the toilets look part of a 1950’s hospital wing). The show was Hamlet, for the second time in three weeks, and turned out to be the best production of the tour.
Contemporary presentations of Shakespeare’s plays can easily go awry. Often something sticks out like a sore thumb: a modern soundtrack that doesn’t fit; a setting that defies credibility, or a shoddy projection that adds little value. This Hamlet dodged every one of these pitfalls. Every element of the show felt crucial to the telling of the story. It felt like Hamlet had been written last year.
The show was set on the burial ground of Hamlet’s father; the entire stage was covered in a thick layer of soil. It was going to be another muddy production. The play opened with the funeral. Rain poured on stage as Laertes awkwardly pushed the coffin into the ground, many times slipping into the grave in a darkly slapstick routine. At the back of the stage there was a long table set for a feast, a party that had been and gone; the wake and the wedding. Characters tucked into microwave meals and chugged cheap beer.
Hamlet himself was a sad and dishevelled young man. Overweight and unattractive, he was rude, obnoxious and socially awkward. By the end of the play we wanted him to die. With a handheld camera Hamlet filmed the other characters on stage, projecting ghostly images onto the wall of chain-metal at the back of the set. In the moment Ophelia (who interestingly doubled as Gertrude) drowned, we saw her projection trapped behind a wall of cellophane, breathing heavily into a microphone. Music played a huge part in the show and extracts from Beirut and God Speed You Black Emperor provided a haunting soundtrack to the action on stage.
Most brilliant of all was the dark humour and witty self-awareness of the show. Hamlet and Horatio performed the play within the play as a take-off of avant-garde performance art; wrapping each other in cling-film and pouring milk and wine over their bodies as Claudius and Gertrude looked on in bemusement. Hamlet’s madness was played to the extreme as he tormented Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. There was also cheeky treatment of the play’s text; at one point Hamlet asked Horatio to leave the stage as it was time for him to do another long monologue!
My last two nights in Berlin (and of my tour) were spent at the Berliner Ensemble. Probably Germany’s most famous theatre, the Berliner Ensemble was established by Brecht in 1949 following his much aclaimed production of Mother Courage.
The first night was Brecht’s own Threepenny Opera directed by the great American theatre designer, Robert Wilson. When I spoke to the theatre’s press officer she told me that very few theatres in Germany could afford to work with Wilson because of the time, freedom and money that he required. From the moment the curtain rose I could understand what she meant. The set was a gigantic piece of modern art. Long clean lines ran the length of the stage creating interesting angles and perspectives. Beautiful interlocking circles of light lit up the front wall during the show’s infamous opening song. In the second act a clever trick of the eye made six horizontal red strips look like a giant staircase, giving the stage an incredible depth and height.
My only problem with Wilson’s design was the difficulty it presented for the actors. How does a character move naturally when they’re standing on a piece of modern art? Stylised actors with white faces and large expressions looked like pawns on Wilson’s epic set. The alienating effect of over-stylised action (even the mimed doors had creeking sound effects), meant that I started to feel a bit detached from the action. But it may not have helped that I was right up in the gods!
My second night at the Ensemble was Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening. Unlike the previous evening, the set was completely bare. This might have had something to do with the theatre’s rigid policy which requires the set from the previous night to be struck immediately after the show. A rehearsal set is then erected for use on the following day until three o’clock when they begin rigging the set for the evening’s performance. Three sets in the space of 24 hours – madness!
The cast had put a lot of work into capturing the physicality of the young characters. This was really interesting to watch and made the play’s more shocking scenes even more disturbing. However the best bit for me was the section in the second act when the school teachers meet to discuss the suicide of one of the pupils. The Dickensian school masters stood in a ring on top of small white blocks which meant that they towered over the young Melchior as they interrogated him. As the masters left the scene we realised their feet were attached to the blocks as they strode into the distance like gruesome creatures!
So, the trip is over, I'm back in the UK. It's been a fantastic experience and I've learnt a great deal. From the highs of Pinocchio in Brussels and Richard III in Prague to the lows of Alls Well That Ends Well in Vienna and English theatre in Frankfurt, every night was a treat in its own way. I've returned with a bag bursting with notes and programmes and a head buzzing with ideas. I think my tolerance and patience has developed and I've learnt to appreciate even the smallest details of stage performance. I can't wait to start making my own work and to put what I've learnt into practice.
Thanks to everyone who's been reading. If you have any questions or would like to know more about any of the places I visited then don't hesitate to get in touch. Thanks also to Ideastap who allowed me to share this blog with so many people.
Edward
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