Adelaide Festival. Festival Theatre. 28 Feb 2014.
Where did those six hours go?
They flew by - but not before they were imprinted into rich Festival memory to be filed away among unforgettables such as Peter Brook's Mahabharata, Robert LePage's Seven Streams of the River Ota and Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal.
This is one of those special experiences that festivals are all about.
Roman Tragedies is a trilogy of Shakespeare plays, set in a contemporary newsroom and performed in Dutch. It incorporates an audience invited to sit onstage eating and drinking wine amid the action and keeping abreast of the dialogue through surtitles on countless monitors and projections. And Tweeting!
Audience members were incredulous when not only told to leave their phones turned on but given the hashtag #romantragedies to Tweet up the play. After all, it's hard to give a spoiler to Shakespeare's plots, but it is good to spread the word. Clearly Toneelgroep Amsterdam and their director Ivo Van Hove are confident about positive responses to the show. Hence, texting and selfies went rampant and people Tweeted each other as well as the play.
Video cameras add to the multimedia, delivering the action not only as from a newsroom with anchors at desks but also as a form of reality TV. Politicians are interviewed on camera. From time to time news tickers streak across the screens to add countdowns and current headlines to the information overload. A couple of monitors play local items such as the Clipsal car race.
‘Coriolanus’, ‘Julius Caesar’ and ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, which make up the ‘Roman Tragedies’, have become about men in suits. The centuries melt away to expose a commonality of power play. It's fierce and familiar politics. There is tub-thumping and backroom deals, corporate ruthlessness and raw political ambition.
There are wars, of course, and these are represented by the beating of drums and cymbals so huge and cataclysmically loud that the whole theatre vibrates.
The audience is invited to move around, particularly at scene changes. On stage there are couches and also bars where wine, food and coffee may be purchased. My Tuna Nicoise salad was superb but, to the distress of many, the savoury food supply did not match the audience demand on opening night. They had to survive on fruit salads and muffins or go into the foyer for chips and chocolates. They may have grizzled, but they did not leave the theatre. The production had cast its thrall.
The six-hour phenomenon also had generated a sense of fellowship - an audience on a long journey together.
Working in and around their audience, the actors keep their focus on the character and play. They are present but apart, existing in their own bubbles of disciplined concentration.
And what splendid actors they are. One after another outstanding performance emerges. When Hans Kesting as Mark Antony gave his honorable men lament after the death of Julius Caesar, the audience wept with him and sprang to spontaneous applause as he finished.
It is one of many potent moments. The death scenes are epic. Love scenes are passionate. Cleopatra screams like a gutted banshee. Enobarbus runs right out of the theatre, followed by the camera. In a desperation of screaming, wailing he appeals to the passing Adelaide public who may long be wondering about the mad Dutchman in the street.
When the action is less intense, the audience may indulge in distractions. The actors' dressing room is right there on the OP side of the stage - a row of mirrors, a lot of makeup and some dressers. And the actors are moving about, ready for the next entrance, or perhaps grabbing a discreet bite to eat. There are even computers onstage, too, for checking email or whatever.
Shakespeare purists may not thrive at this Dutch condensation of Shakespeare and its liberties with lines but this is immersive rather than classical theatre. It is grand and over-the-top like an opera. It is low and seedy like a political expose. And, it is in Dutch, a difference which soon feels strangely normal, despite the gutterals.
Even after six hours, the audience did not rush to leave. As one, it leapt to its feet to give a standing ovation that went on and on. And rightly so.
Samela Harris
When: 28 Feb to 2 Mar
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
