Among Swifties: Pia Richter’s manufacturing of “What you want” | EUROtoday

Enrico Lübbe’s unusually lengthy fourteen-year directorship on the Leipzig Schauspielhaus will come to an finish in 2027. It was not with out friction internally, however has lately developed nearly miraculous powers externally. After the Corona hunch, the home is in a superb place: occupancy figures like by no means earlier than and one of many youngest theater audiences within the republic – common age underneath forty.

But what is nice can at all times be higher. That is why Leipzig is striving for an uncommon successor: a “team director” consisting of the director Clara Weyde, the costume designer Bastian Lomsché and the dramaturge Clemens Leander. Since 2022, the trio has attracted consideration as a collective appearing director on the Magdeburg Theater as a result of it discovers up to date materials for the stage (equivalent to Kim de Horizon’s “Blood Book”) and brushes traditional materials towards the grain and thus makes it appropriate with the zeitgeist: various, gender fluid, queer – you identify it. Last yr, this earned her the title of “Theater of the Year” in German-speaking nations. And sooner or later, the Leipzig directorate itself – if town council agrees.

Such theater has lengthy been supplied in Leipzig, and coincidentally one can now attempt it out once more within the first premiere after Lübbe’s hoped-for successor was introduced. Pia Richter staged Shakespeare’s “What You Want”, a comedy of confusion first carried out in 1602, which, by the determine of the idiot, already hints on the melancholy that might characterize Shakespeare’s late comedic work. But the idiot does not exist in Leipzig. In Richter’s interpretation, his identify is Taylor and he’s a lady, performed and, above all, sung by Juli Niemann.

Taylor like Taylor Swift, whose track lyrics the director had beforehand confirmed could possibly be confused with Shakespeare’s verses – a comedy of confusion of a special sort. In any case, the piece begins immediately with “Mirrorball”, initially accompanied by spinet sounds and intoned by Niemann within the English of Shakespeare’s time, with the numerous line “I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight”, however then the curtain opens and it will get rocky, as a result of During all the efficiency, a three-piece rock band sits on stage underneath the path of drummer Maria Moling, and there’s a lot to do.

Georg Hensel, an unforgettable theater critic for this newspaper, as soon as known as “What You Want” “Shakespeare’s most musical play.” Duke Orsino loves music, his first sentence, the primary ever within the comedy (used a bit later in Leipzig), is: “If music is the nourishment of love, keep playing.” And on the very finish, in Shakespeare, the idiot sings. In Leipzig everybody sings on the very finish. Of course Taylor Swift: “Shake it off” with the telling line “And the fakers gonna fake fake fake fake fake”.

Yes, all of them misplayed badly earlier than. This isn’t performed incorrectly, however very effectively by the Leipzig ensemble, which is diminished to seven roles: the shipwrecked Viola (Vanessa Czapla) has disguised herself as a person on the recommendation of Taylor, however has fallen in love with Orsino (Nicolas Streit), who sends the supposed boy as his love messenger to Countess Olivia (Teresa Schergast), but in addition offers him covetous appears to be like in the beginning. Viola’s mission fails due to Olivia’s servant Malvolio (Denis Petković), who’s in love together with his mistress.

And lastly, Viola’s twin brother Sebastian (Samuel Sandriesser), who has been lacking because the shipwreck, causes unrest in Illyria as a result of he was rescued by the privateer Antonia (Emmeline Puntsch on this truly male position in Shakespeare), with whom Orsino nonetheless has a bone to select. Pia Richter does not take an hour and a half to take care of all of the anticipated calamities of this constellation (in any case, all of the burlesque scenes involving the drunken nobles and the malevolent family workers have been omitted, thus additionally affecting the play’s delicate stability between sure and prosaic language).

From this digest size there’s a couple of quarter of an hour of Taylor Swift songs – so we get to Shakespeare at Tiktok tempo. On the opposite hand, the verbal exchanges are additionally at high velocity, which is nice for the motion on stage, which in any other case takes place a bit too monotonously on a three-story roundabout (constructed by Julia Nussbaumer), which invitations numerous scrambling and posturing that implies extra ups and downs within the motion than truly takes place.

Vanessa Czapla is excellent, who does justice to her position (and likewise actually appears to be like like her twin brother – Lise Kruse’s costumes and the masks are improbable). In distinction, Denis Petković and Nicolas Streit are typically over-the-top, which, nonetheless, solely does justice to Richter’s understanding of the position: males are ridiculous figures; no marvel that the noble Antonio has mutated into the noble Antonia. But Schergast can also be diminished an excessive amount of to the weird. The director solely takes the idiot severely – or slightly, her songs. And the tip. Pia Richter’s ending, it needs to be stated, due to course there cannot be a heterosexual joyful ending for her.

When this appears to have already been accomplished and the applause begins, the curtain rises once more, an intervention by the actors themselves continues the love dance, and equals be part of equals. This is motivated by Taylor Swift – “Shake it off”. What does it matter that Sebastian and Olivia acquired married shortly earlier than? A Shakespeare isn’t a bourgeois tragedy.

Excitement (a lot higher than on the first curtain) within the corridor, which was as soon as once more full of younger folks even on the premiere and acquired what they anticipated. But maybe that’s not precisely what theater ought to purpose for. It might be attention-grabbing to see how issues will go in Magdeburg in seven weeks, when “What You Want” involves the stage there once more: with the participation of all the future Leipzig triumvirate.