Roman Tragedies: Six Hour Shakespeare Epic for Adelaide Festival
Staged by Toneelgroep Amsterdam exclusively in Adelaide and for the first time in Australia, visionary director Ivo Van Hove bravely combines three of Shakespeare’s plays, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra into one epic and continuous six-hour political drama, Roman Tragedies.
Roman Tragedies is performed in Dutch using English surtitles and exposes the political game in all its facets: Coriolanus takes place during the rise of the Roman Republic, with Coriolanus refusing to submit to the changed political environment. Ultimately he takes up arms against Rome, his own city. In contrast, Julius Caesar gains power because he is skilled at manipulating the masses. Fearing a dictatorship, other politicians remove him to save the democracy, but it is already too late to reverse political change. In Antony & Cleopatra, global politics become entwined with passionate desire, resulting in Antony’s inner conflict between public responsibility and love. The result is a bloodbath.
Scenography/lighting designer Jan Versweyveld transforms the theatre into a political conference, with all the accompanying infrastructure.
The audience is situated in the political arena, with the six-hour performance playing out around them. There is no fixed intermission. Theatrical conventions are shattered by allowing patrons to walk around the auditorium and move freely to sofas on the stage for a different view of the action or to enjoy food and beverages.
This immersive multimedia spectacular frames personal political ambition and national interest through society’s obsession with the 24-hour news cycle. As the action unfolds, multiple video screens situated in the foyer, auditorium and on stage show live continuous action from the stage, mixed with news footage of contemporary events overlaid with a news ticker. A live feed of unseen plot events, edited from the adaptation, provides further depth of understanding of the production. Audience members can follow the non-stop action at various locations by means of the monitors and large projections.
American video artist Tal Yarden and his partner Trish Fox specialise in designing and realising multimedia theatre environments where creativity and hypermodern technology work hand in hand.
Yarden writes of Roman Tragedies: ‘in this production we don’t use video to create atmosphere or as a design element. It’s reality TV, it’s a tool. It’s a proposal for discussion.’
For Roman Tragedies the Flemish composer, Eric Sleichim, has created live acoustically played music that is often also digitally processed. Each of the three parts of the production has its own score.
Says Director Ivo Van Hove, ‘Roman Tragedies is a polyphonic theatre production in which all opinions and standpoints exist side by side; a piece that does not aim to make an ultimate statement about who has right on his side or which direction we should take. Shakespeare does not take sides, either. With the Roman tragedies he wrote three plays that revolve around politics and its mechanisms. Without prejudices or partisan standpoints he shows how people who believe in political ideas or systems debate with each other. He shows how they succeed or fail in their political aims. He shows how politics is made by people.’
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands’ largest repertory company, performing international-standard contemporary theatre from its home base, the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg. With an annual average of twenty plays, the company entertains audiences of one hundred thousand each year. The company first performed Roman Tragedies in June, 2007, during the Holland Festival.
Reviewers have raved about Roman Tragedies, for example: ‘Roman Tragedies brings Shakespeare into the 21st Century’-Backstage; ‘The actors are superb; sexy, cerebral.’- Time Out New York.
Perhaps the ultimate recommendation comes from the New York Post-
“One word: go.”
Lesley Reed
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au or BASS 131 246
Dates: Fri February 28, 6pm; Sat March 1, 3pm; Sun March 2, 2pm.
Note- 6 hour performances.
Venue: Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
Tickets: Adults $159; Friends $135; Concession $135; Fringe Benefits/Under 18 $50.
Images: Jan Versweyveld.
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