Issue 15, 2010
Prompt Corner
We often have cause to remark upon differences between British theatre culture and others, usually continental European ones. One regular topic is how far a staging interpretation can legitimately diverge from a text. My predecessor on the Financial Times, Alastair Macaulay, regularly fulminated against “director’s theatre”, especially at this time of year (I am writing this column in Edinburgh, with the Fringe in full swing and the International Festival about to begin). In contrast, Europeans may chuckle indulgently (and sometimes a little condescendingly) at what they see as a British prejudice in favour of stage naturalism and slavish adherence to texts.
Principle
There has been some comment along these lines in online discussions of Dennis Kelly’s version of Kleist’s The Prince Of Homburg, as staged at the Donmar Warehouse. As you can see in the reviews reprinted in this issue, several of us (myself included) strongly criticised Kelly for changing the ending of the play. Some of the responses seemed to assume prejudice because we were English (I’m not), or because we were old (I hope I’m not) or, in some instances, simply because we were Michael Billington, who continues to be portrayed by many as the personification of all ancien regime critical stuffiness… all of these responses being made with a prejudice far greater than any which Michael himself might occasionally display. It has to be said, too, that of the online comments I saw from people who had no problems with the changes, not one of them had seen the production nor even significantly engaged with the nature and extent of the changes at all; they all seemed simply to be pronouncing on principle.
And yes, in principle any act of translation is an act of interpretation; a translator will take decisions regarding emphasis of moods and themes, and regarding “playabaility” in the new language. This is absolutely not such a case. Kleist ends his play with the Prince being reprieved from a death sentence and rallying with the rest of the army behind his ruler, the Elector of Brandenburg; Kelly ends it with the execution being carried out and the Elector facing a mutiny from his entire officer corps. This is not a matter of interpretation. Black is not a version of white.
Contradictions
I can understand Kelly’s rationale. He knew that the play was one of which Hitler was reportedly fond, for its argument about subordinating personal initiative, personal principles and even one’s life to state policy, and he wanted to follow this line of thinking to a conclusion. However, the point of the play is that there is an argument; in Kelly’s version, the Elector must become ever more unbending, which is not the case in the original. For Kleist was dramatising his own inner contradictions, between his keen sense of individual liberty (well, he was an early-19th-century German Romantic) and his sense of patriotism at what was a critical moment as Prussia was threatened by Napoleon’s expansionism.
Kleist found an ending which synthesized his conflicting impulses: one which acknowledged mercy and individual impulse, yet ultimately rowed in behind patriotic duty. However, it is an ending with shadows of its own. When the Prince asks whether his reprieve is a dream, the reply comes, “A dream. What else?” Since the play begins with a dream, the possibility is that the ending is also unreal in this way, and that the Prince is after all executed. But that is simply a possibility, no more. To steamroller the delicate, thoughtful ambiguities of the play, and to pretend that it unequivocally says the precise opposite of what it in fact portrays (albeit rather less categorically), is to do a disservice to the play, to distort it beyond the point where I think it can reasonably be called a version of that play. If Kelly wanted to consider the story in this light, he could easily have taken the situation and the characters and written versions of them of his own… as he did with The Gods Weep, seen not so long ago.
Perjury
The argument has been made that, in translation as in staging, no permanent damage is done to the original play; it remains intact to be read/translated/staged more literally next time. To me, that is like arguing that perjury does not damage the truth, which remains intact to be told properly next time. Most people who are tried, are tried only once; most people who see a particular play (not just a particular production) see it only once. The present account of it is the only one they will see and hear. To claim that what is being presented here is the original work, or even a ”version” of it, is perjury, and is lying without any regard for the truth.
Contrast that case with Philip Prowse’s ending of Pygmalion in his Chichester production, also reviewed in this issue. Prowse goes so far as to stage Eliza’s wedding to Freddy and to show Higgins seething as he witnesses it. Prowse’s change, like Kelly’s, flattens ambiguities in the ending as it was originally written. He, like Kelly, is taking account of subsequent reception of the play; yet, in my opinion at least, he is just as wrong-headed in his choice. But this shift requires no textual changes in order to make its point; nothing is excised from the script, nothing added (with the exception of the single word “Freddy!”, growled by Higgins, which is hardly a major departure). For me, that comes well within what we might call “European” limits of interpretative staging. Interestingly, a number of reviewers of the Kleist also thought that Kelly took liberties with Kleist’s text by inserting the word “fatherland” repeatedly to emphasise the totalitarian atmosphere. In fact, the German word Vaterland occurs several times in Kleist’s original.
Tardis
If only we could travel in time, we could ask Kleist himself about this… But wait! We can! The secret of time travel has been discovered, and its discovery is announced in this very issue! When Tim Walker declares in his review of Danton’s Death that he will write the first review of Toby Stephens not to mention either of his parents, Tim can only mean that he intends to travel back several years in his Tardis in order to pre-empt the majority of reviews Stephens has received this century, which have been entirely lineage-free. After all, the alternative would be that Tim is simply being ignorant and self-aggrandising, and that couldn’t possibly be the case, could it?
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
Reviewed in issue 15, 2010:
Place cursor over title to see cast list.
To see production photographs 
London
Production |
Venue |
Opened |
Closed |
Page |
| ANNE BOLEYN New play by Howard Brenton | Globe | 28 Jul | 21 Aug | 840 |
| THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE Revival of play by Martin McDonagh | Young Vic | 21 Jul | 21 Aug | 817 |
| BLINK TWICE New compilation musical cabaret show | Above The Stag | 29 Jul | 22 Aug | 827 |
| BURN THE FLOOR Dance show | Shaftesbury | 26 Jul | 4 Sep | 839 |
| DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA Revival of play by John Patrick Shanley | Phoenix Artist Club | 29 Jul | 21 Aug | 811 |
| DANTON'S DEATH Revival of play by Georg Büchner in new version by Howard Brenton (NT) | Olivier | 22 Jul | 823 |
|
| GOD SPORTS New play by Gopi Warrier | New End | 16 Jul | 31 Jul | 820 |
| THE GO!GO!GO! SHOW New musical by Mike Stock and Steve Crosby | Leicester Square | 29 Jul | 30 Aug | 849 |
| THE HOUSE OF BILQUIS BIBI New play by Sudha Bhuchar from Federico Garcia Lorca (Tamasha) | Hampstead | 26 Jul | 14 Aug | 830 |
| INTRIGUE/LOVE Revival of play by Friedrich Schiller (the faction TC) | Southwark Playhouse | 21 Jul | 7 Aug | 816 |
| THE JEWISH WIFE Revival of play by Bertolt Brecht | BAC | 23 Jul | 14 Aug | 829 |
| LIGHT SHINING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Revival of play by Caryl Churchill | Arcola | 16 Jul | 7 Aug | 808 |
| LINGUA FRANCA New play by Peter Nichols | Finborough | 16 Jul | 7 Aug | 810 |
| London International Festival of Theatre See review pages for full production details | various | 23 Jun | 31 Jul | 844 |
| NO IDEA New piece by Lisa Hammond and Rachael Spence | Young Vic, Maria | 22 Jul | 31 Jul | 828 |
| ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE DOVER New play by Sonja Linden | Wilton’s Music Hall | 28 Jul | 28 Jul | 843 |
| PAY AS YOU GO New play by Steven Hevey | Cock Tavern | 23 Jul | 14 Aug | 831 |
| THE PHILANDERER Revival of play by Bernard Shaw (Sell A Door TC) | Greenwich Playhouse | 22 Jul | 15 Aug | 834 |
| THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG Revival of play by Heinrich von Kleist in new version by Dennis Kelly | Donmar Warehouse | 27 Jul | 4 Sep | 835 |
| THE SECRET OF SHERLOCK HOLMES Revival of play by Jeremy Paul | Duchess | 20 Jul | 812 |
|
| SHIRLEY VALENTINE / EDUCATING RITA Transfer of revivals of plays by Willy Russell | Trafalgar Studio 1 | 26 Jul | 30 Oct | 832 |
| SPUR OF THE MOMENT New play by Anya Reiss | Royal Court Upstairs | 20 Jul | 21 Aug | 814 |
| SUBS New play by R J Purdey | Cock Tavern | 27 Jul | 14 Aug | 834 |
| SUSURRUS Revival of piece by David Leddy (Gate) | Holland Park Gardens | 20 Jul | 1 Aug | 849 |
| THIRD PERSON: BONNIE AND CLYDE REDUX New piece by Proto-Type Theater | Soho | 12 Jul | 24 Jul | 839 |
| TOMORROW, IN A YEAR New music theatre piece | Barbican | 27 Jul | 28 Jul | 843 |
| WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS Revival of play by J M Barrie | Finborough | 19 Jul | 2 Aug | 809 |
Regions |
||||
Bard In The Botanics See review pages for full details |
Glasgow, Botanic Gardens | 25 Jun | 31 Jul | 861 |
| COPACABANA Revival of musical from Barry Manilow song | Newbury, Watermill | 21 Jul | 4 Sep | 857 |
| THE GOOD SOLDIER New adaptation by Julian Mitchell from novel by Ford Madox Ford | Bath, Th Royal, Ustinov Studio | 15 Jul | 14 Aug | 855 |
| HANSEL AND GRETEL New adaptation by Nick Lane | St Andrews, Byre | 28 Jul | 14 Aug | 864 |
| THE MAGICAL MENAGERIE UK première of piece by François Delarozière and La Machine | Milton Keynes | 16 Jul | 8 Aug | 856 |
| MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING / HERCULES Revival by Shakespeare / New play by Helen Eastman | Chester, Grosvenor Park | 16 Jul | 8 Aug | 856 |
| PRIVATE LIVES Revival of play by Noël Coward (Oxford Shakespeare Co) | Oxford, Wadham College Gardens | 28 Jul | 20 Aug | 859 |
| PYGMALION Revival of play by George Bernard Shaw | Chichester Festival | 19 Jul | 27 Aug | 850 |
| THE RED SHOES Revival of play based on poetry by Anna Maria Murphy (Kneehigh) | Truro, Tywarnhayle Farm / touring | 30 Jul | 29 Aug | 860 |
| ROMEO AND JULIET Revival of play by Shakespeare (Creation TC) | Oxford, Said Business School | 20 Jul | 4 Sep | 857 |
| TWENTY:20 New play by James Quinn | Scarborough, Stephen Joseph | 15 Jul | 28 Aug | 856 |
| 24:7 Theatre Festival See review pages for full details | Manchester, New Century House | 26 Jul | 1 Aug | 859 |
| THE VENUS LABYRINTH New piece by Nullo Facchini | Glasgow, Arches | 20 Jul | 25 Jul | 863 |
| THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS New adaptation by Mike Kenny from novel by Kenneth Grahame | York, Theatre Royal | 23 Jul | 21 Aug | 858 |
| YORK MYSTERY PLAYS Revival of mediaeval play cycle | York, Dean’s Park etc | 11 Jul | 18 Jul | 860 |
