Basel Ballet opens season with '3' (x) . Til Dec 2011

 © Ismael Lorenzo

What a marvellous way to open Basel Theatre’s ballet season. This is one of the most stunning performances I have seen yet by Basel Ballet. An evening of three very different ballets by three choreographers:  Rebus by Basel’s ballet director Richard Wherlock, followed by two ballets by guest choreographers, Rain Dogs by Johan Inger, and Cantata by Mauro Bigonzetti.

Wherlock is the first choreographer to stage the ballet Rébus by Russian composer Igor Markevitsch, bringing a new interpretation to the dance. He brings his dancers to achieve an all-time high in technical and physical achievement. Impressionistic, at times the dance includes gymnastics and elaborate throws and turns. The staging makes clever use of lighting and contrast, and there is a nice effect when a frosted screen drops down centre-stage cutting the women off from the men, so we see them as ghostly outlines and shadows. The composer’s rhythmic two-time beat remains a constant throughout the piece, but changes from menacing to triumphant driving the dancers on in a breath-taking tempo.

Performed to the melancholy music of Tom Waits, Rain Dogs is the title Tom Waits gives his album and by which he means hobos, prostitutes, and people in need. Inger transforms this menagerie into a quirky study of what it is to be human. Opening with a solo dancer and his ghetto blaster, whose exaggerated mime conjures up a range of street people from tramp to young street dancer, Inger parodies their foibles in an amusing fashion, impressing us with the acuteness of his observation. Each song from Waits’ album brings another scene, not linked narratively, but through movement, music and costume. He plays with the boundaries between graceful suppleness and grotesque dislocated movement, and the stereotypical barriers between men and women.  This world premiere was greeted with rapturous applause.

 In Cantata, Bigonzetti draws on his experiences of everyday life in Southern Italy. The stage becomes a village square, with vibrant music, traditional song and peasant costume. Bigonzetti captures everything from the joie de vivre to the heated arguments of the Italian villagers. In a fast-paced intensive dance, there is some marvellous ensemble work which ranges from witty to serious. It is completely mesmerizing and the audience showed their profound admiration for this outstanding performance at curtain call with calls of bravo and prolonged applause.  

All in all, a performance not to be missed!

Next Performances: Oct. 8/11/16/21/23/24; Nov. 2/4/6/11/13/20/24; Dec.1/16/22/28

Tickets from www.theater-basel.ch, Tel. 061 295 1133

Wagner's Opera 'Parsifal'. Basel Theatre (til June 2011)

The knights of the Holy Grail are in mourning. The sacred spear which pierced Christ’s side has been stolen by the magician Klingsor, when Amfortas, the keeper of the Grail, succumbed to Kundry’s seduction. Kundry bathes Amfortas’ never healing wound, sustained when Klingsor struck him with the Holy Spear. Amfortas is tormented by guilt for his failure and love for Kundry; a love he knows is doomed. The knights bring in a boy who has just killed a swan. Gurnemanz suspects he fits the prophecy that ‘a pure fool made wise through pity’ will become the new king of the Grail. However, the boy fails to show pity to Amfortas and he is banished. Kundry is ordered by the magician to ensnare the boy. In Kingsor’s magic castle he resists the alluring flower-maidens, but is transfixed when Kundry calls him by the name given him by his mother – Parsifal. When Kundry kisses him, he understands the consequences of lust and pities Amfortas. Defeating Klingsor, Parsifal finally enables Amfortas’ salvation by returning the Holy Spear.

Parsifal is Wagner’s last and most contentious opera. Wagner saw the work as a quasi-religious ritual of absolution and stipulated that it should never be performed anywhere other than his theatre in Bayreuth. The Met set the precedence for defying his wish in 1903; and the controversy has since continued with widely diverse interpretations by those opera houses capable of staging it. A grotesque subtext adds to the polemic: in conjunction with the opera, Wagner published a demented anti-Semitic essay.  Consequently, Nietzsche dammed Parsifal as ‘an outrage on morality’.  

Nonetheless, the opera offers us music of extra-ordinary beauty. Powerfully emotive, you cannot help being moved by it, irregardless of the staging or underlying philosophy. In the Basel opera, a brilliant line-up of soloists, whose stage presence and vocal prowess were faultless; together with the Symphony-Orchestra, really did the work justice. Particularly impressing were Ursula Füri-Bernhard (Kundry), and the prize-winning Chinese Bass, Liang Li (Gurnemanz). Somewhat less appealing was staging by director Benedict von Peter. Taking Wagner’s theme of redemption and the search for self, he presents a visual metaphor of doppelgänger or twins. He interprets the search for one’s double as the search for a more primitive state of innate goodness. Hence numerous Extras are doubled on stage – which is faintly amusing, and somewhat specious. Moreover, he encumbers the work with his idea that the ‘author’ should be present on stage through-out; an author who is also the alter-ego of Amfortas. Fortunately, this role is taken by Allan Evans, whose performing talent and voice are exemplary. While Benedict von Peter’s ideas are interesting, he has not really been able to portray them convincingly in performance. Furthermore, the staging of scaffolding turrets replete with floodlights, and trash of compost-flowers left over from Act II, doesn’t do this magnificent opera justice. Hence, at curtain-call, there was a mix of booing for the production team and resounding cheers for soloists and orchestra.

Performances: May 6/14/17/28; June 2/19. Running time 5 hours incl. two half-hour intervals - check site for start-times: www.theater-basel.ch/spielplan

BEACHY HEAD, 1st Mar. 2011 at Basel Theatre (English Play)

Beachy Head is a notorious suicide spot on the English south coast. Centre-stage is a film-screen showing black swirling clouds. We hear the eerie sound of howling wind and crashing waves. The spot-light turns on a wooden chair, where a woman is sitting with her back to us. Her face is projected in close-up on the screen and she tells us ‘People are dying constantly; one in every 9000 deaths is a suicide’. She  goes on to explain, ‘Pathology is an investigation into what turns life into death – not into the reasons why somebody jumped’.

We then see a woman who appears to be lying on a white autopsy table, but the white screen reverts to swirling black clouds. It is Amy, standing on the cliff top, staring over the edge into the darkness. She is struggling to cope with the recent death of her husband, who chose to end it all here. Two documentary filmmakers have caught blurred footage of a man jumping from a cliff. Their film takes a startling direction when they decide to meet Amy. The play charts the ripple effects of one man’s decision to take his life, as those left behind search for answers.

This play by Analogue is well acted and well staged, creating vivid images, and food for thought. I particularly liked the almost magical transformation of stage props, one image blurring and becoming another. It produces an uncanny parallel to the business of the documentary filmmakers, who manipulate their content to ‘get a good shot with something to focus on’ and make a story. The pathologist explains she must perform an autopsy on the body in order to determine the cause of the suicide’s death, but she must stop seeing the body as anything other than an object. Likewise the filmmakers’ shooting is another form of anatomy on a human life. Here tension arises between the two young men as one becomes emotionally involved in the tragedy of the woman left behind, while the other remains coolly objective - their personal goal taking precedence over honesty. It provides an interesting reflection on our society where everything is filmed, irregardless of privacy or human empathy.

The story is sensitively told and convincing, with ironic touches which add an element of humour; providing the audience some respite from a difficult subject. The staging is intentionally self-conscious; we see the wind whipping round the cliff is created by a man waiving a board, and the torn pages carried on the wind are held up by a man with two long sticks. This is beautifully done and adds to the poetry of the piece.

Beachy Head is the follow up to Analogue’s award winning Edinburgh Theatre Festival 2007 debut Mile End. It was written by Dan Reballato, Emma Jowett and Lewis Hetherington. I hope there will be the opportunity to see more of their work at Basel Theatre. Sadly, I fear we are unlikely to have the pleasure of more English plays next year, in view of the funding cuts following the recent ‘no-vote’ for funding by Basel-Land.

SUPPORT BASEL THEATRE!!

• Basel theatre has a crisis with respect to funding.
• On14^th February, 2011 Basel-Land voters said ‘No’ to a CHF 17m credit, which had been scheduled for the next 4 years.
• Over past 20 years the theatre has seen a 30% decrease in its state funding. It has used up all its reserves, and will be forced to cut staff and reduce quality.
• The initiate was vetoed by 51%, only 2600 votes’ difference. The large conglomerate communities near the city, e.g. Arlesheim, voted positively for the theatre, so-called ‘Unterbaselbiet’ (lower Baselbiet); those small outlying villages not (Oberbaselbiet). Unterbaselbiet realises the importance of culture to an international community living in the city – which brings benefits to the whole canton.

• The Basel Theatre is now desperately looking for an alternative solution:

It is collecting signatures for a letter to be sent to the Basel Government. Please sign the letter to express your solidarity: http://www.theater-basel.ch/offenerBrief.cfm .

The letter requests that the theatre is not left to manage without this crucial funding, which will result in severe staff-cuts and a reduction in quality/variety of productions. The theatre needs a sustainable re-financing and re-structuring plan.  A solution should be found combining theatre/Basel-Land, Basel-Stadt/Sponsors.

BAZ launched an appeal ‘Spendenaktion’ whereby people can support theatre directly with donations, in order to find funds which are required immediately to pay staff. See details below.

Theatre is important to our culture: it holds a mirror up to society, more so than any other form of art, thus it provides a critical analysis of how society is working, and ooks to the future critically. In comparison museums look to the past.

What is the purpose of a theatre nowadays in a town like Basel? Is it part of the marketing of Basel as a cultural city to attract visitors, or is it to provide culture to its inhabitants? Is this either/or, or really both?

For the 35, 000 English-speaking inhabitants that live in Basel due to the international companies based here, the Theatre Basel is one of the things that makes Basel attractive as a place to live.

• SHOW YOUR SOLIDARITY – sign the ‘open letter’ published on the website, and send it to Basel Theatre/or give it in at the box office..
   
• Spendenaktion «BaZ unterstützt das Theater» Basler Zeitung, Hochbergerstrasse 15, 4002 Basel 

Basler Kantonalbank
PC-Kto.: 40-61-4
KTO. Nr.: 2520.0388.2006
IBAN Nr.: CH58 0077 0252 0038 8200 6

Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank
PC-Kto.: 40-44-0
Kto. Nr.: 0551.3765.2001
IBAN Nr.: CH82 0076 9055 1376 5200 1

Sources: http://bazonline.ch/kultur/theater/Unterstuetzt-das-Theater-Basel/story/28436250

Basel Theatre performs 'Das war ich nicht' (It wasn't me)

c.Simon HallströmThe stage opens as the three people flee – it is a fast-forward snap-shot into their future, but how did they meet? Three people find themselves dependent on each-other, in an exciting tale of troubled times during the financial crisis. Jasper Lüdemann has made it: from back-office-boy to trader in Futures and Options at the biggest investment bank in Chicago. Mieke, a translator with only one client, the Pulitzer-prize winner Henry LaMarck, travels to Chicago in search of her author, who’s failed to deliver his next promised best-seller. Henry has gone underground. He’s holed up the penthouse suit of a Chicago hotel in Chicago, because he can no longer write, and because he’s fallen in love – in a newspaper picture of a young banker, who’s staring horrified at the falling stock-exchange.

Three gigantic mirrors centre-stage show a reflection of the audience, who are seated in the round, and the three fleeing protagonists. Jasper spins the mirrors and tells his story. Passionate and convincing, ‘Put-options’ and ‘Calls’; we feel the thrill of high-finance and risk-taking along with him. In another corner of the stage, Meike is trying to set up her new home; poor, scatter-brained and quirky; the opposite of Jasper. She panics when she realises Henry’s disappearance means she’s lost her only source of income. In search of Henry, she meets Jasper, and through her, Jasper meets Henry; who has just what he needs – money.

This highly entertaining play is a real treat; fast moving and extremely witty, with splendid performances by all three actors. Based on the book by German author Kristof Magnusson, this Basel premiere is performed on Basel theatre’s ‘Kleine Bühne’ in an intimate atmosphere creating a sense of immediacy. The actors make the most of the small space, engaging with the audience in a humorous manner. While the use of props is minimal, it is inspired: mounting furniture creates a marvellous image of the precarious nature of mounting debts; and an overhead screen projecting back-office staff and bosses at the Bank creates a sense of the inhuman impersonality of these monolithic institutions.

The play is highly recommended, one of the funniest I’ve seen in a long time. It requires a fairly good command of German, but even if you don’t quite get all the witticisms, the actors’ performances will entertain you and the highly visual performance gives plenty to watch.

 Future performances: 1/6/13^th Mar. 2011.

Tickets: www.theater-basel.ch. Tel: 061 295 1133