City Theatre | Tartuffe by Molière – Göteborgs-Posten

THEATRE

STADSTEATERN

Tartuffe by Molière

Director: Tobias Theorell

Translation: Allan Bergstrand

Cast: Eric Ericson, Frederick Evers, Nina Haber, Inger Heyman, Carina M Johansson, Adam Lundgren , Tova Magnusson, Thomas Nystedt, David Rank Borg, Johan Ulveson

Set design: Magdalena Åberg

playing until January 31, 2015

Gothenburg City Theatre becomes Molière’s Tartuffe more of a comical display of the weak man’s failings than a discussion of hypocrisy and power. Lis Hellström Sveningson see a show that entertains, but does not load power.

The Institution Theatre puts his repertoire with long-term planning. Rarely could well the artistic leadership of Gothenburg City Theatre imagined that premiere of Tartuffe would take place at a time when the nuances of the words and promises durability is tested in the Swedish political debate and the hypocrisy lurking behind the next debate.

Classic sets the saying goes that they are always current, but whoever expects to Stadsteatern set of Molière’s 350-year-old piece should comment on the authenticity and morality in government crisis games, will be disappointed. This version of Tartuffe joins more to the theater’s general gender line by putting the focus on the weak man. The individual before society.

A PARTICULAR POINT DIRECTOR Tobias Theorell reading against our times. 1600′s music is turned away if the thumping techno Gustav Nordmark arrangements and Alex Tarragüel Rubio’s costumes have modern cuts. As a citizen Orgon’s Johan Ulveson neat, but casually dressed with brown shoes to jackets and pants, cut from a business magazine.

His revelry family has more the air of 1970s flume, as strong color, click wielding the bottles and Glass – albeit with champagne instead of wine. The daughter Mariane (Nina Haber) are uniformed as a tidy friskoleflicka, it unleashed sitting in the hair. Inger Hayman’s revelation that Orgons mother – in walkable shoes and packed with handy trolley – is an effective contrast of the party. Hayman plays as always with comedy’s precision and takes care of the details.

ORGONS HOME IS a castle, it sets Magdalena Åberg’s scenography no doubt. Walls with heavy, dark wood paneling and large doors with handles high up giving a concrete picture of a slow and difficult to maneuver life. For the game offers room farce like running into doors, which trainer takes fun to be on.

The play of the hypocrite Tartuffe is cleverly written. Scene by scene, we approach him. First, in the third act he appears. Then the other paved the way for well by describing Tartuffe and praise or horrified at his doings. Overall functioning ensemble’s handling of the verse, it often contributes to the comic stand.

Here are celebrating Carina M. Johansson, in the role of chamber maid Dorine, big triumphs. She is brilliant, the whole evening, with inventive and well-timed actions, both physically and verbally. Even Orgon dompterar she said.

Johan Ulveson DO role, supreme, from the first moment when Orgon come home and inquires about the condition of the house. The game between Ulveson and Carina M. Johansson creates the evening’s highlights. He likes to play with small means and using everything; voice, body, replica. Or just gaze. Listen to how he repeats the question “and Tartuffe?” – Eventually falsetto – all while Johansson’s ironic Dorine knusar him.

During the show develops Ulveson a wonderful sample of gaits, ranging from exalted surges between the doors of the decomposed limping . Orgon goes as he is.

Just as skillfully working actor with silences and pauses.

There is a directed grip that recurs. Frederick Evers Cléante also know how to effectively keeps a break.

The show gets an imbalance between those with grateful roles to bite and those who like Tova Magnusson, Nina Haber, David Rank Borg and Adam Lundgren constitute aid figures in scheme. The big question that remains, the whole show through, is: Who’s Tartuffe?

At the first performance in Paris in 1664 shocked the Molière character of the religious rulers to such a degree that they could King, Louis XIV, to ban the play. In today’s secularized Sweden, it is difficult to draw bills on Tartuffes hypocritical pact with heaven. So what gives him the power of Tobias Theorell version?

Ericson FORM will unfortunately not provide any real answers. When Tartuffe well turn up, he is a seemingly stunted and Vattenkammad person in everyday gray suit. The charisma as before sent by the others’ speech is difficult to trace. Forces are not visible on the outside, but it does not penetrate either from within. Here are the surroundings, especially Orgons closest homoerotic adoration that gives Tartuffe power. He just needs to seize it. It makes the charges weak and Eric’s självspäkarscen become such a stand-alone display of the floor acting.

In his seduction scene with Tova Magnusson’s Elmire, the two do not stand a chance against the invisible Ulvesson under the table. Orgons shortcomings obscure Tartuffe.

Perhaps this is why the director hottar up late theatrical. If that is the case you should see the real power, Thomas Nystedt as a hybrid of Molière and Louis XIV, must set things right.

THE SUBSTANCE

City Theatre set of Tartuffe , a comedy from 1664 by the French writer Moliere. The play premiered in Versailles same year.

WRITER

Lis Hellström Sveningson is a critic and a regular contributor to the GP’s cultural pages. Last wrote about the dancers and singers pension conditions.