I write from Gdansk, Poland, where I am attending the 15th annual Shakespeare festival, founded and organized by my friend Professor Jerzy Limon of the University of Gdansk. Acting companies from all over the world come to this city for the first week in August perform. This is my third successive visit, and once again I am impressed by the imaginative staging of many of Shakespeare’s plays.
I have been especially impressed this year by two productions in Russian directed by Nicolai Kolyada. The first was an amazing adaptation of Hamlet which departed considerably from Shakespeare’s script to present what the program notes describe as “a world full of savages living and dancing on the ruins of the refined culture they used to have.” The dancing was especially effective and reminded me of the exercises the Japanese teacher and director Suzuki uses in his training of actors. Facial expressions and body movements also conveyed the savagery of the characters, who at times strew empty cans and other detriment across the stage.
The next night Kolyada’s company performed King Lear with the director himself in the leading role. Once again music and dance played an important role, but this time the production stayed closer to Shakespeare’s dramatic structure. As I know no Russian, I cannot say how closely the dialogue, of which there was a good deal more than in the previous night’s Hamlet, followed Shakespeare‘s text, but the essential aspects of the original were clearly preserved despite some noticeable cuts (for example, Lear’s dialogue with Gloucester on Dover Beach). Many unusual props were used, like the tubs that resembled oversized roasting pans and served as bathtubs, sleighs, and at the end coffins. Although at the outset Lear seemed to be a jovial, even manic, king enjoying life to the fullest, by the conclusion he has learned through terrible suffering at the hands of his elder daughters–marvelously represented by two experienced actors–what it is to be human. His final entry, pulling the dead Cordelia in one of tubs, was particularly effective, and his last words, even in Russian, were extremely moving.
A few hours earlier I witnessed another version of Lear called “Anatomia Lear” by a company from Finland. This was largely a wordless play lasting only 55 minutes and seemed to be staged as Lear’s dream, or nightmare. Lear himself was represented by a wooden puppet made to look like an aged and decrepit old man lying in a hospital bed and manipulated by one of three “nurses.” In its different way it was also an effective interpretation, or I should say adaptation or offshoot of Shakespeare’s play, emphasizing “loneliness, fear of death, and reconciliation,” according to the program notes.
Those who have never attended the Gdansk Shakespeare festival have a real treat awaiting them.
