The duke and magician Prospero, who was overthrown by his own brother, has been stuck on a desert island for twelve years. In exile, the single father of a 15-year-old daughter has become a bitter man. Prospero has made the air spirit Ariel and the goblin Caliban his subjects and hatched a revenge plan: he lets a ship with his brother on board get into distress and thus lures the traitor to his island.
William Shakespeare’s late work The Tempest is a comedy but also one of his darkest plays. Insidious murder plots are hatched right next to romantic love scenes, black holes of misanthropy yawn in the midst of the light and airy theater magic. The world that Shakespeare creates is utopia and dystopia at the same time, dream and nightmare in one. As exciting as that is, it is also difficult to find the right mix for it on stage. “Storm” productions are usually too nice and harmless.
In Vienna, the play was last seen 15 years ago at the Akademietheater, in a very playful and, yes: also somewhat harmless version by Barbara Frey for only three actors; Maria Happel played the wild Caliban back then. The Icelandic director Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson has now staged “Storm” on the big stage and with a large ensemble; Maria Happel is back, this time as Prospero. The fact that the main role is played by a woman has no further consequences. At first, Happel jokes that she was the “Duke and Duchess” of Milan; but her role has not changed gender.
The “Rüpelszene” is staged as a song contest
The performance begins with a 20-minute intro. Slowly, very slowly, the revolving stage fills with people, props, theater fog – and above all a lot of music. Around the musician Gabriel Cazes (on the piano), the actors and actresses also grab their instruments (remarkably good: Roland Koch on the trumpet) and sing a medley of evergreens from pop history – from “Mr. Sandman” to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, from Paolo Conte (“Via con me”) to Lou Reed (“Perfect Day”). Music also plays a major role in the further course of the performance. The “lout scene” with the drunken sailors Trinculo and Stephano, for example, is staged as a manic-depressive song contest: Michael Maertens plays the melancholic crooner and sings “My Way”; Roland Koch throws himself at the audience as an “And now everyone!” entertainer.
As soon as, between the musical numbers, it is about somehow also telling the piece, the staging seems much more uninspired. A lot of the scenes are quite conventional, sometimes even quite listless. is it a comedy Is it a tragedy? Neither nor. Is Prospero more of a loving father or a crazy theater magician, is he a brutal colonialist, an angry god of revenge or just a grumpy house tyrant with all too human weaknesses? Maria Happel easily avoids such interpretations; her Prospero is of such noncommittal friendliness that the main role almost becomes a supporting character.
Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson was supposed to stage Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt” at the Burgtheater last season, but the production was canceled due to the pandemic. In the program booklet there is now a note that stage designer Elín Hansdóttir also used elements from the stage design conceived by Wolfgang Menardi for “Peer Gynt”. It is not known why the Burgtheater did not stick to the original plan at all. Be that as it may, for long stretches of the evening you have the feeling that you are sitting in the wrong piece.