|
Vengeance, Bloodlust and Afternoon Tea: Armageddon, Cupcakes
& The Poisonous Love of Heiner Müller's 'Medeamaterial', 'Heartpiece'
& 'Quartet'
By Heiner Müller
iMind Theatrical Productions
Theatro Technis
Review by Philip Fisher
(2005)
Some title!
Heiner Müller is regarded as a German successor to Bertolt Brecht
and owes much to the influence of Samuel Beckett. His work is rarely
performed in this country and apparently these three plays are even
more rarely performed than most.
American actor/designer/director Cradeaux Alexander has already produced
the two main pieces Off Off Broadway. They will never attract mainstream
audiences but these quirky plays and unusual, stripped-down interpretations
are both challenging and amusing.
Medeamaterial
This twenty-minute re-telling of the Medea story provides Alexander
with an opportunity to show his acting talents. Quite why Medea should
be played by a naked man wrapped in flowing red cloth is not entirely
apparent.
The actor is hemmed in by four microphones at different heights and
most dramatically writhes his way through the tale of jealousy, unfaithfulness
and the slaughter of children.
The performance is, at times, reminiscent of Robert Lepage doing a
solo Hamlet. The use of different voice colours helps to identify the
speech of Medea and Jason but this potted version of a Greek classic
can be difficult to follow.
Heartpiece
It is hard to write much about a play that lasts no more than two minutes.
Antonia Schnauber plays a woman who wants to know the true nature of
her heart and therefore asks a doctor, David Sayers to remove it. It
eventually takes three doctors (according to the publicity material)
to do the trick after much moaning and groaning.
The result is not some bloody, pumping set of valves and arteries but
a brick.
Quartet
This is the longest play at around 45 minutes. Müller has adapted
Choderlos de Laclos' epistolary novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
for two voices (or in this version four). It is sensual, funny, intelligible
and by far the most satisfying part of the evening.
Alexander's treatment of the play is fascinating and works well. It
primarily follows Valmont and Madame de Merteuil (John Malkovich and
Glenn Close in the movie) using pairs of actors and actresses to play
single parts. They become not only these two but the men also take on
Mme de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), and the women become the frisky
young Cecile (Uma Thurman).
Dressed in black and white, the male and female pairs speak their lines
as one. This builds to an exciting and very sexy interpretation of the
French classic.
Alexander's version of Quartet relies on carefully choreographed
performances and is well acted by Miss Schnaube (like Müller she
is German, but speaks with unaccented English) and Ava Burton as Madame
de Merteuil and Sayers teamed with Executive Producer, box office manager
and actor Rohan Quine as a sometimes overly-camp Valmont.
|
