The overarching element that unites everything under one roof plays no role in this radio play project and the title The search for lost time does not even appear programmatically. According to radio play dramaturge Manfred Hess, it is about emphasizing the independence of the individual parts of Marcel Proust’s cycle of novels. And also about reducing possible fear of the unknown. The search for lost time is a monstrous work, around 5000 pages long. That scares off at first, even well-meaning people.
Each of the seven novels works on its own, as this series from SWR and Deutschlandfunk wants to prove. In order to emancipate them from each other, the realization as radio plays is not always in the same hands. Changing directors and actors create their own tonality.
Ulrich Lamps has now staged the sixth of the seven novels, The escapee. This is Albertine, who lived in Paris with the narrator, Marcel, for a while. An amour fou from which she has now freed herself. At least temporarily. The narrative mostly follows him, who would like her back. But Marcel is not a man of clear words. On the contrary, he acts cool in his letters to Albertine because he believes this is the best way to incite her desire for him.
Felix Goeser and Laura Balzer play this non-couple. Both characters display a self-confidence that most of them don’t have. They are prisoners of social conventions at the beginning of the 20th century, from which they try to wriggle themselves and from which they cannot completely escape.
Marcel, however, ventures far ahead in his fantasies and also in his undertakings. He is shaped by his sexual desires, which include homoerotic feelings and voyeuristic lust. So he enjoys the idea of watching Albertine during a lesbian seduction. He even tries to be allowed to witness such a scene – albeit without Albertine, who is not in town. which he is denied. He gets himself into even greater trouble by taking young girls to his room. Not with sexual intent, says Marcel, the narrator. But you don’t know exactly how far you can trust him.
The staging of all of this is very restrained, it’s not voyeuristic, rather dissecting cool. And senses the danger that Marcel is in and that he poses to others in his unsteady attitude towards moral questions. The novel could too The escapee hot, because of a hero running from himself. But it doesn’t get far.
The Runaway, SWR 2, November 19, 2022, 11:03 p.m. Part 2 on November 26th.