Conducted by
Richard Hickox
Directed by
David McVicar
Designed by
Michael Vale
Choreography by
Michael
Keegan-Dolan
Alcina
Lisa Milne
Morgana
Laura Claycomb
Ruggiero
Deanne Meek
Bradamante
Charlotte Hellekant
Melisso
Mark Richardson
Oronte
Andrew
McKenzie-Wicks
Oberto
Gail Pearson
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Alcina
by George Handel
English National Opera
London Coliseum
16 April - 22 May 2003
The trouble with an adaptation of an adaptation - and a liberal one at that - is that it is bound to bear only a passing resemblance to the original work.
Strindberg's A Dream Play at the National Theatre is Katie Mitchell's take on Caryl Churchill's re-write. It comes across less as grand compassion for human sadness or a display of life as madness at play than as the hectic dreamworld of a pathetically anxious man who one just wishes would get a grip on his life.
In Strindberg's original play, Agnes, daughter of the Indian God Indira, descends to earth where she witnesses mankindbs endless wheel of suffering, disappointment and guilt. In this re-make, we see Alfred, a 1950s stockbroker, formidably played by Angus Wright, whose harrassed, edgy and bemused existence is touching, but lacks the raw horror of Strindbergbs play.
There are extraordinary moments: one was when Alfred's teeth all fall out of his mouth; another is that familiar nightmare, finding oneself unclothed in public. Anastasia Hille, playing Alfred's mother, was unsettling in her cruel aloofness. He unexpectedly finds himself surrounded by ballerinas, male as well as female, who move spookily in snatched scenes from Giselle. Newly weds commit suicide only moments into their marriage as they quickly realize that happiness will be elusive. The production's feverish pacing and its clever reversals of time, in which scenes are replayed backwards, creates the overwhelming sense that any idea of an ordered world is an illusion, that nothing is neatly positioned on straight axes of time and space.
The actors and the staging are brilliantly versatile. A single set is transformed into office, home, schoolroom and opera house. Actors mutate into angels, children, dancers and mourners. It is virtuosic, but oddly lightweight.
AC Grayling
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