Shakespeare passions stretched from Rome to Beijing – Kommersant

XXIV International Theatre Festival “Baltic House” in Shakespeare jubilee year under the motto “Shakespeare passions.” A poster of one of Europe’s largest theater forums opened play Romeo Castellucci “Julius Caesar. Excerpts. ” C Details – ELENA Gerusova.

The motto “Shakespeare passions” should not be misleading: a poster of the festival is not only the shekspiriana, but also performances by a completely other literary material, but to inflame the statement worthy to be numbered with Shakespeare.

However, opened “Baltic House” is the famous Shakespearean play Romeo Castellucci European radical put on “Julius Caesar” by “Raphael Society” in 2014. This work – avtoremeyk “Julius Caesar” Castellucci, who became the event of the late 90s of the last century.

The new version of “Caesar” shown in the marble hall of the St. George’s Mikhailovsky (Engineers’) Castle. Why circuit power and vulnerability and physiology of the dictatorship, which arises from the soft tissues and cast iron in the form contained in the play, has received more universal meanings. Vce same mythology Mikhailovsky Castle intertwined legend and biography of Paul the First.

Shakespeare’s plays Castellucci squeezed in exactly 45 minutes. The first passage reads actor entering the nasal cavity some endoscope movement flesh larynx projected onto a screen. Gestures dressed in a purple robe Caesar driven power war machine. The glory of Caesar reads actor, devoid of speech: the voice is synthesized through the machine. The essence of oratory here is not the beauty of tone – it is just there, and the power of conviction. At the end of an iron rod is lit and bursts of voltage range of light bulbs, the soundtrack sounds of helicopters taking off.

So Romeo Castellucci is possible not only to investigate the physical capabilities, voice communications, but also to create a universal scheme Birth of the dictatorship and the fall of the dictator. And unlike Shakespeare, the characters of “Julius Caesar,” it does not make heroes or criminals, rather, it deprives them of individual psychological traits and emphasizing the physical and physiological in them, makes them function stories (stories which may well be repeated in different times), but not in the actors of historical dramas.

In the director’s radical thinking with Castellucci will compete for the first time participating in the “Baltic House” Hungarian Kornel Mundrutso and theater “Proton”: they bring a documentary play “Dementia”. As usual, the festival program is widely represented Baltic direction, in particular Eimuntas Nekrošius will play “The Book of Job.” Of St. Petersburg performances, participating in the festival, two major premieres – “Memories of the Future” by Valery Fokin (Alexander Theatre) and “Alice” Andrew Mighty (BDT). As well as “Macbeth” staged by Luc Perceval on stage “Baltic House».

The idea of ​​Shakespeare’s passions has been extremely comprehensive, the poster there was extensive – in particular, even among the debutants festival was listed Beijing People’s Art Theatre with the play “Our Jing Ke.” Festival will last until October 13.

Elena Gerusova