Prospero is tired. Wolfram Koch looks like a cross between a tramp and a Rolling Stones understudy. In order for his tricks to ignite, he needs Ariel’s help. Lorena Handschin in a glittery dress not only pulls the strings, but equally thick ropes. And she proves real pop star qualities with some songs. It was a refreshingly unusual “storm” that swept through the Theater am Kornmarkt in Bregenz on Saturday as the premiere of a Berlin co-production.
Jan Bosse’s production, which after three performances as part of the Bregenz Festival will be played in the Kammerspiele of the Deutsches Theater Berlin from September 1st, also has tempo problems. Some things are tightened in the version, which is played for 135 minutes without a break, which can cause problems for those who are not familiar with the plots with its only retold history. Other things, on the other hand, don’t come and don’t make any headway. In fact, the performance only gets the right groove when Ariel – accompanied live by musician Carolina Bigge – grabs the microphone. Then you hear the famous lines “Hell is empty. And all the devils are here” several times as a rock ballad.
The fact that Linn Reusse as Miranda and Julia Windischbauer as Caliban wrapped in green gauze are also allowed to demonstrate their impressive singing voices in one song or another is one of the biggest plus points of the performance, which does not have a convincing overall concept, but has many beautiful facets. That Prospero, the former Duke of Milan and now ruler of the island, is more of a theater and magician – this interpretation has been seen several times. The fact that a jungle of ship ropes proliferates on the island (stage: Stéphane Laimé), which is used much more imaginatively than just for one or the other Tarzan number, should be new. The translation by Jakob Nolte is certainly new, which is somewhat laboriously “hanging its way through the Old English original”, creates more distance than closeness and sometimes sounds very strange. “Do you love me?” – “I do love and honor and appreciate you”, it says there, or: “What is the time?” – “Night of the middle season.”
Costume designer Kathrin Plath has come up with a lot of unconventional ideas and has made the father-daughter arguments, the love scenes or the bully scenes between Stephano (Jeremy Mockridge) and Trinculo (Tamer Tahan) particularly entertaining. Like Maria Happel in Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson’s Burgtheater production of “The Tempest” in spring, Wolfram Koch as Prospero remains surprisingly pale. The desired confrontation with the mechanisms of power and oppression, exploitation and appropriation succeeds at best in rudimentary form. Clever pictures and mostly excellent actors offered sufficient reason for a storm of jubilation at the end of the premiere. That’s Bregenz. Even a storm can be loved – provided it doesn’t sweep over the lake stage.
(SERVICE – William Shakespeare: “The Tempest”, director: Jan Bosse, set: Stéphane Laimé, costumes: Kathrin Plath. With Lorena Handschin, Wolfram Koch, Jeremy Mockridge, Linn Reusse, Tamer Tahan, Julia Windischbauer; Carolina Bigge (live- music), co-production Bregenzer Festspiele with the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Theater am Kornmarkt. Further performances: July 25, 26, www.bregenzerfestspiele.com)