Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Ein Sommernachtstraum

Yesterday evening I went to a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Thalia Theater in downtown Hamburg (http://www.thalia-theater.de/home.php?LANG=1). Unfortunately there are no good picture of the set online, but the basic design was a giant revolve with two rooms (one visible at a time) that would appear as an "H" from above. The walls were covered in a large patterned elegant wallpaper that formed a simple backdrop for the wacky and mostly contemporary costumes. A back drop with blue sky and clouds was the only other notable set element, however many props such as potted flowers, toilet paper, sheets of plastic, and sleeping bags.

As far as the production, it was a very entertaining combination of contemporary references to pop culture, often confusing mixing of languages and accents, and slapstick humor. One of the students in the group I assembled was convinced by the pointy ears and mannerisms that several of the characters were based on those from Lord of the Rings -- given the casual mixing of elements I would not be surprised, but I was not entirely convinced. In large sections the lines of Oberon and Titania were a sloppy combination of English (with an irish accent) and German. And one of the hopeless male romantics always spoke with a French accent and apparently made make mistakes in speach. Otherwise, the most interesting aspect of the show was the progressing reflection of the increasing chaos in the story through the physical states and appearances of the set and characters; the walls of the set fell, swivelled inward, and in places were burst through (being only made up of wallpaper).

For some visual interest... completely unrelated... I am continually surprised and dismayed that a Burger King took over this evidently very old, elegant, Temple-like structure with such a beautiful fountain/scupture before it. An interest contrast in ideas and cultural sensibility certainly, but hard to comprehend.

...And here is (or was) a poster depicting a member of the Christian Democratic Union, Gemany's main right wing conservative party and that of their current chancellor Angela Merkel -- a clear sign of the local Hamburg liberal sentiment.

1 Comments:

Blogger the Everyday Anthropologist said...

Mmmm, the Midsummer production sounds interesting... I'm excited to see UPS' version sometime this weekend. Geoff's whole 80's high school fantasy concept should be perhaps as unusual as the production you described...

As for your Hamburg-er King, I was similarly surprised/saddened by the Pizza Hut I saw inhabiting one of the centuries-old buildings just around the corner from Shakespeare's abode in Stratford...

11:40 AM  

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