Hamlet in Paris: Ivo van Hove re-stages Shakespeare | EUROtoday

Since the start of the twentieth century, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” has had little luck on the Paris Comédie-Française. After a primary manufacturing in 1932, which was revived ten years later with the illustrious Jean-Louis Barrault within the title position, a very good six a long time handed earlier than a brand new manufacturing was launched. According to “Le Monde” in 1994, Georges Lavaudant approached the work as a “master of lighting direction and character management,” however much less as an exegete who tried to interpret the textual content.

In 2013, Dan Jemmett’s tabloid vulgarization of the intricate play was even much less effectively acquired: a “lousy sitcom,” in keeping with the identical newspaper. The latter two performances may even have scored factors with charming foremost actors: Redjep Mitrovitsa and Denis Podalydès respectively. Against this background, one wish to name Ivo van Hove’s new manufacturing, offered on the Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe on account of building work within the Comédie-Française’s foremost constructing, a half-success. But that additionally means: half a failure. According to the assertion of ideas, the present director of the Ruhrtriennale needs to point out the Danish prince as a theater idiot who, out of frustration with the shortage of means of stage artwork to enhance the evil world, turns into radicalized and transforms from an “idealist to an activist and unrepentant murderer”. This is problematic in two respects.

On the one hand, Van Hove overemphasizes “Hamlet’s fatal passion for amateur acting” (because the translator Frank Günther as soon as mentioned), which is already clearly specified by the textual content and even types its most evident strand by considerably condensing the play (to a operating time of only one hundred minutes – so costly characters reminiscent of Osrik, Rosenkranz and Güldenstern in addition to the cranium of the courtroom jester Yorick disappear for theater lovers). And by making Hamlet the witness, spectator, and even stager of all of the retained scenes through which, in keeping with the unique, he’s not even on the stage.

On the opposite hand, the responsible verdict of “unrepentant murderer” is tough to justify. The prince is to not blame for the loss of life of Polonius’ son Laertes, whose unwitting instrument he’s – a blade dipped in poison was positioned in his hand throughout the competitors. In flip, he stabs the Councilor of State to the purpose of saying “How? what? – a rat?” when the eavesdropper hidden behind a curtain all of the sudden makes noise throughout a dialog between Hamlet and his mom. Lawyers may declare extenuating circumstances reminiscent of concern and shock; There could be no query of a cold-blooded homicide, even premeditated, particularly because the “perpetrator” not solely makes heartless sarcasms about his sufferer but in addition repeatedly expresses honest phrases of regret.

What stays is the killing of the king, his stepfather – who instantly beforehand not solely poisoned Laertes and the prince himself, but in addition unintentionally poisoned his personal spouse, Hamlet’s mom. “Killing in emotion” can be the strictest sentence for his response to the tragic chain of occasions shortly earlier than his personal paling – and when the poison could already be clouding his motive.

From the outset, the directing idea is predicated on comparable “weak legs” as Polonius. What nonetheless emerges is a fast-paced and thrilling efficiency which will convey the supposedly distant basic nearer to younger viewers who’re extra used to tv collection. Like in a movie, there may be an intro and an outro: a close-up and close-up of Hamlet’s face, projected onto a floor-to-ceiling curtain, is adopted by a “big bang” in a stylized, blood-red inside of the physique.

Pierre Routin’s nearly uninterrupted minimal musical accompaniment has an eminently televisual impact; and scene adjustments are systematically marked by digital “drumbeats” and by white pixel noise on a display within the background on which program phrases reminiscent of “murder”, “revenge”, “fighting” and “killing” flicker in capital letters. The stage design and lighting, for which Van Hove’s associate Jan Versweyfeld is accountable as traditional, are each spare and efficient: seven theater spotlights, which Hamlet directs at one level on a monologue determine, in addition to numerous curtains, together with a picturesque one in light outdated pink with a silver silky shimmer as a foil for the monologue “To be or not to be?”

There are additionally interludes of underground music – a Van Hove whim that’s considerably self-indulgent right here – which partly captures Hamlet’s mind-set in brutal tones (like Nirvana’s grunge music “Negative Creep”), and partly replaces Ophelia’s songs (like “Everybody Dies” by Billie Eilish and “L’Enfer” by Stromae). Where they do not even take the place of a whole scene – on this case the theatrical efficiency within the theater, which has to offer strategy to a musical-like adaptation of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. The raunchy kitsch of this Broadway parody, choreographed by Rachid Ouramdane, is a transparent reference to Helmut Berger’s equally scandalous cabaret quantity in Visconti’s cult movie “The Damned” – which Van Hove tailored in 2016 with troupe members of the Comédie-Française for the Court of Honor of the Papal Palace in Avignon.

The actors, justament. They all testify to the highest type that the venerable firm has discovered its manner again to in recent times. Starting with Christophe Montenez as Hamlet – a extra heated than hesitant, unreserved embodiment. Each foremost character is given a particular, role-appropriate profile: The Queen (Florence Viala) is a distinguished spouse and lovingly involved mom, Polonius (Denis Podalydès, the Comédie-Française-Hamlet from 2013) is a chatterbox but in addition a really current paterfamilias, his son Laertes (Jean Chevalier) is a bit dumb however has his coronary heart in the appropriate place. Only Élissa Alloula and Guillaume Gallienne are capable of break by means of a sure one-dimensionality: she performs a self-determined Ophelia, he performs a cool, calculating king and, in a double position, the unusually vividly struggling ghost of his murdered brother. But nice appearing performances don’t in themselves make an amazing night.