This month Mr. van Hove returns to New York with “Scenes From a Marriage,” his stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s drama about a troubled couple, Johan and Marianne, in a new English translation by the playwright Emily Mann. And he’s using his considerable knife skills to slice his way through a new target: New York Theater Workshop itself.
3 comments:
This is such an interesting concept. With so much movement oriented and site specific theatre in the works now, it's wonderful to see theater orientations mixing the classic and the contemporary.
The smaller spaces might feel tighter and more intimate, but the constant shuffling of the audience between scenes probably in actuality very alienating to the viewer. The arena style seating on the other hand might, as the article said, feel like a "Greek amphitheater," but the sensation of watching love and loss played out on stage while almost making eye contact with an audience member across the stage is touchingly and uncomfortably intimate, and would appear to form connections in the light of a marriage shattering.
This sounds like such an incredible transformation of a theatre space. I don't think I've ever heard of a play where the set-up of the theater is actually changed during the performance. In contemporary theatre, it seems that there has been a big movement over the last decade into thinking more about how the space can be a larger part of the production rather than just considering the traditional design elements. It is also so interesting that the audience begins the play in three separate spaces and comes together for the second act. I would love to see how these big choices with the space play out in the performance itself.
Olivia, I would agree that the moving could be distracting and alienating especially if it is not performed smoothly. I've had the opportunity to see a show performed in a similar manner to this one, where a relatively small audience (15-30 people) followed the actors through three different rooms in an old mansion and it actually was incredibly engaging and made the show far more personal. That being said, with this production taking place on a stage it may not produce the same effect. It would be interesting to hear how the show was received by the audience. The reviews I was able to find for the show seemed relatively mixed, they all acknowledged Ivo van Hove's ingenuity and style as fascinating but the reviewers sometimes felt overwhelmed by the perpetual noise and entangling timelines. It would also be very informative to hear how the actors approached the task of playing a couple through different stages, to hear what went into building a character's arc when three people became that character.
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