 | Much Ado About Nothing |  |
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?" Act I, scene i
Written: 1599
Stadttheater Bern ; April 12, 2008 Bern, Switzerland
Director : Georg Schmiedleitner ; Starring :
Reviewed on : 2008-05-02 10:10:58 ; Reviewed by : Annett Baumast
| The Vidmarhallen, where the Stadttheater Bern shows Georg Schmiedleitner’s production of Much Ado (still running in repertoire), have only recently been opened providing two completely new stages in a former industrial building. Vidmar 1 – the stage used for Much Ado and virtually just a big black box – welcomes the audience with a nearly proscenium arch setting. Seats on a scaffolding can be found on the one side, the elevated stage has been mounted on the other. That fact that the stage can actually be moved forward and backward will become apparent right at the beginning of the play when the lights go out and the stage advances towards the audience. No curtain is provided and so we see a bare wall made of untreated plywood that goes from left to right across the stage with six doors cut into it. Later, we will learn that not only the doors open but that several parts of the wall itself can and will be unhinged and moved, creating new spaces and possibilities on stage.
Leaving out the scene with the messenger, the performance begins with the return of the soldiers (who have become sailors in this production) with Sebastian Edtbauer’s Borachio playing the machinist, covered in dirt and oil from head to toe. And that he has not only machines but also machinations in mind, he demonstrates to us just before the interval when he jumps down from the stage and addresses the audience directly. He asks us what we need and promises to get us everything. Just as he provided the right set-up for Don John’s revenge. So if there is anything he can do, we should meet him at the parking lot behind the building during the interval. For now, however, just like the other three white-clad soldiers (Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick), who share the stage with him, he smears himself with fake blood before Leonato enters the stage to greet the lot. The Governor is dressed in a sumptuous gown and holds a bottle of champagne in his hands, indicating that Messina has been partying and taking it lightly while the soldiers were away at war. Hero joins them, dressed in a corset and miniskirt, wearing glasses and braces on her teeth –definitely a teenager by appearance. Beatrice enters the stage with her, dressed in a long, simple dress and robust sneakers, ready for engaging in the first cross-talk with Benedick. The last one of the characters to appear in this opening scene is Don John, entirely dressed in black and sporting the most sinister look (aided by black make-up) he can muster.
The eight actresses and actors on stage in this first scene are all we get in this production and everybody expecting racy on- or off-stage role-changes will be disappointed. The text – Schmiedleitner draws upon Joachim Lux’ translation that was recently used for Jan Bosse’s production of Much Ado at the Burgtheater in Vienna (premiere: 08/12/2006, still running in repertoire) – is basically cut down to these eight roles. No Antonio, Margaret or Dogberry to name just some of the missing parts. While cuts like that can help focus the plot on the most important characters, the danger is always to lose too much of the play itself, which, to my mind, is rather true for this production.
Leonato invites the soldiers to stay and we then become witnesses of the first verbal encounter of Beatrice (Sabine Martin) and Benedick (Heiner Take), delivered with verve and credibility. After Boracchio and Don John have schemed their intrigue, the masked ball begins: everybody prepares a paper bag with holes for eyes and mouth to put over their heads. The stage is moved backwards again and the dancing takes place at ground level. We hear Pulp Fiction like music and the dance we are shown reminds us of mannequins stiffly moving their limbs to an unfamiliar tune.
With Boracchio’s intermezzo freshly in mind, we return from the interval to hear the story of how Claudio discovers Hero’s “betrayal” from the master of the intrigue himself. The sailors then prepare for the wedding by ironing the white trousers of their dress uniforms and then the show can begin. A black, frilly and sparkling curtain is drawn in front of the stage that has been pushed back again and Hero and Beatrice successively grab the microphone in order to perform two songs before the wedding ceremony is about to begin. When Claudio refuses to marry Hero, she is passed between the men like a rubber doll, losing her vital spirits more and more until she finally faints and falls to the floor. Sounds of anxiety emanating from the audience suggest that her performance is more than credible in this scene. Don Pedro stands in for the missing Friar, creating a confusion when he suggests hiding Hero, which normally is the Friar’s part. The plot is then solved as usual and no major changes are administered to the ending of this Much Ado.
The big pitfall of this production, I think, is the fact that Georg Schmiedleitner not only uses the contemporary but rather distinct translation of Joachim Lux, the designated artistic director of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, but also copies some of the ideas Jan Bosse’s production at Vienna’s Burgtheater – the überstage of the German-speaking theatre world. There are too many similarities between the two productions, to a large extent based on the text, reducing the one in Bern to a poor copy of what is being shown – with, of course, a much bigger budget and greater names – in Vienna. Benedick’s description of Beatrice, for example (“They say the lady is fair” II, 3), slowly turns into the description of the beauties of a car. And with Benedick played in a typical 1980s mullet, complete with tight trousers and an undershirt in both productions, they become too close for distinction, with a clear advantage for Vienna.
This is not to say that small productions cannot work. They can, indeed, and Schmiedleitner’s version has probably worked for a large part of the audience, judging from the frenetic applause at the end of the premiere and the discussions during the interval. Having seen both productions, however, it is difficult to find any originality in what has been put onto the stage in Bern, which is a waste in such a theatrically gorgeous place inviting novelty and experiment.
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Sir John Gilbert, R.A.,
Beatrice and Benedick
Reviews
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July 31, 2009 |  | OVO at The Maltings Arts Theatre
June 25, 2009 |  | Regents Park Open Air Theatre
June 1, 2009 |  | Lord Chamberlain’s Men
July 2, 2008 |  | Stadttheater Bern
April 12, 2008 |  | Wide Eyed Productions
March 2, 2008 |  | Redshift Theatre at UH Arts
October 17, 2007 | | Pirate Utopia
November 15, 2006 |  | Stratford Festival of Canada
August 3, 2006 |  | Royal Shakespeare Company
May 22, 2006 |  | Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
December 19, 2005 |  | BBC TV
November 7, 2005 |  | Signal Ensemble Theatre
August 23, 2003 |  | Spandauer Sommerfestspiele
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