THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG: Kleist, Bartlett, RSC, Swan, the Lyric Hammersmith
THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG: Heinrich von Kleist, version by Neil Bartlett with David Bryer
The Swan, Stratford, (Tkts 01789 403403) then Lyric Hammersmith
Runs: 2h 15m, at the Swan Stratford then from 22 February 2002 at the Lyric
Review: Rod Dungate, 30 January 2002
A production that is marvellously strong, clear, precise and hypnotically strange
Bartlett's production of his own adaptation of THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG (Heinrich von Kleist) is full of intriguing, puzzling and hypnotic strangeness. His bare staging, the formality of the script and performances place Bartlett and his company in the roles of disinterested reporters of The Prince's story: as the story unfolds we can analyse issues as they pass. However, the intricacies and different viewpoints ensure we come to no simplistic solutions (life, the nightmare that life is, is far too complicated for easy answers).
Von Kleist, writing at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, himself an unsettled soul, wrote plays that didn't fit in with his Age. Surprisingly (and excitingly) the jarring world he creates in this play, existing between the worlds of waking and sleep and in neither, is at one with our world. This world when we nightly consume grotesque and bloody images of war, starvation and death without batting an eyelid yet have no idea how to deal with the explosion of the theft of mobile phones and the terrible methods that are employed to steal them. Kleist is now something of a cult figure in Germany.
The story centres around a young Prince who is thrust headlong into a confrontation with death through a youthful act of foolish bravado – he has broken the strict military codes by which he is supposed to live. It is a play of honour, duty, politics of power, human strength and frailty. Where passion exists it is tempered by codes of behaviour.
This production is marvellously strong because Bartlett's vision is equally strong. His work is intelligent, thought-through, clear and precise. It is all a coherent whole too, with its nightmarish soundscape and its angular lighting, producing long ominous shadows: sound and light work together to create an eerie half world (the half world that Homburg, himself, inhabits.)
Dan Fredenburgh is an elegant and vulnerable Prince Homburg, leaping between emotions at lightening speed. Tanya Moodie is equally elegant as Natalie, Princess of Orange – a fascinating role, this. Her most truly passionate moments are quietly contained while her loud passionate moments are formally constrained, yet she also has the power quietly, calmly, to enter the male world of politics and summon her army to aid the man she loves.
The production closes with a scene that mirrors its opening: a dramatic, disturbing and chilling conclusion.
Cast
Count Heinrich von Hohenzollern: Will Keen
Friedrich, the Elector of Brandenburg: James Laurenson
Elizabeth, the Electress: Lynn Farleigh
Natalie, Princess of Orange: Tanya Moodie
Captain Stranz: Matthew Flynn
Friedrich Arthur, Prince of Homburg: Dan Fredenburgh
Captain von der Golz: Derek Hutchinson
Franz: Andrew Fallaize
Field Marshal Dorfling: Brian Poyser
Colonel Count Truchss: Peter Bygott
Colonel Kottwitz: Fred Pearson
Captain Siegfried von Morner: Guy Oliver-Watts
Captain Georg von Sparren: Peter Moreton
Captain Count Reuss: Crispin Redman
Director: Neil Bartlett
Design: Rae Smith
Lighting: Paule Constable
Sound: Mick Manning
2002-02-01 09:26:00