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Author
Georg Buchner
Adapted
by
Daniel Kramer
Director
Daniel Kramer
Design
Neil Irish
Performer
Ed Hogg
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Gate Theatre
Notting Hill
8
November - 4 December 2004 |
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Woyzeck
is a problematic play. It
exists only as a series of
24 scenes which the young
Buchner did not live to put
in order. Since few scenes
last more than a page it has
understandably taxed directors
and readers ever since, as
the play can take a variety
of forms, even to the extent
of suggesting that if the
play begins with Marie's death
then all the subsequent action
could be seen as flashback.
This idea might not be as
far-fetched as it at first
might appear, since the play
is full of anticipations of
much later drama. Indeed,some
have argued that the play
is proto-expressionist rather
than an epigrammatic, but
essentially naturalistic,
account based closely on a
true story. It is saturated
with symbolism, not least
of Woyzeck's mad, but insightful,
comments about mysterious
voices audible beneath the
earth.
The play is packed with antitheses:
class versus morality, madness
opposed to enlightenment or
wisdom, eternity opposed to
the quotidian, professional
exploitation opposed to low-class
lust and finally murder. Who,
in a sense the play asks,
is the gentleman? Certainly
not the effete captain or
the weird doctor, who in this
production turns up later
in a cabaret-dive as a transvestite
singer.
Daniel Kramer has chosen to
put the scenes in a relatively
conventional order that proceeds
from images of Woyzeck's exploitation
by the doctor and the captain
with consequent bouts of madness
caused by overwork, poor diet
and medical tests, alongside
his love of Marie and jealousy
at her fling with the drum-major
to the final dÈnouement of
Woyzeck murdering Marie and
then committing suicide in
his vain hope of throwing
the knife he used further
and further into the lake.
Kramer's approach however
is much less grimly realistic
than this bare account of
the plot might have suggested.
Instead, he has opted to emphasise
the proto-expressionistic
side of the play. There is
a highlit clock and alarm
that governs Woyzeck's frantic
life like Pavlov's dogs. Woyzeck
rushes from appointment to
appointment by infantilising
tricycle. When his and Marie's
baby finally emerges from
its swaddling clothes it turns
out to be only earth and dust.
The production is also saturated
with bizarre tavern scenes
acting as metaphors for the
screwed up world in which
Woyzeck lives either for real
or in his imagination. Music
plays an important symbol
in the production. Beethoven
9th symphony (a close contemporary
of the original play) is both
ironically heard by the captain,
who, of course, completely
misses its message of the
brotherhood of mankind in
the way he treats Woyzeck.
Elsewhere songs of Elvis Presley
prevail with their apt titles
such as "Heartbreak Hotel".
Kramer directs the action
at a furious pace so there
seems almost no moment to
arrest the dive into hell
and beyond that Marie and
Woyzeck are forced into making.
This is an enthralling and
very intelligent production.
I cannot say I found all the
symbols clear or interpretably
as I was watching it, and
emotionally I felt more dazzled
than dismayed. However, the
whole is riveting and the
acting and sets excellent.
Edward Hogg captures Woyzeck's
fluctuating emotions and descent
into despair, madness and
eventual murder with magnificent
vulnerability. Myriam Acharki
suggests with great finesse
Marie's ambivalence between
loyalty to Woyzeck and their
baby as well her sexual attraction
to the Drum Major. Both Fred
Pearson's Captain and Tony
Guilfoyle's Doctor are suitably
arch and well focused as the
plausible, but mad, persecutors
of Woyzeck. The Doctor's later
transvestite re-appearance
also reveals more about his
complex psychological make
up.
The final drowning scene is
a coup de thÈ’tre with quite
a strong echo of the Hammersmith
Lyric's famous production
of Goethe's Faust.
Woyzeck
is a sad play and despite
its terseness and angry one.
It is not a twentieth-century
play but an early nineteenth-century
one so its targets show a
remarkable and revolutionary
insight into his own age.
Yet, these targets need to
be tackled in their different
guises in each generation.
This Daniel Kramer's superbly
does with its period yet not-period
costumes, images and symbolic
references. It's an enthralling
evening in the theatre, emotionally
and intellectually challenging
and should certainly not be
missed.
Roderick
Swanston |
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