Castle premiere

Laborious Orpheus to a long adieu

Nina Siewert in "Orpheus descends"(Bild: © Matthias Horn)

After "The Tattooed Rose", "Orpheus Descends" is the second drama that US writer Tennessee Williams tailored to the great Italian actress Anna Magnani, with whom he had a close friendship. Martin Kušej chose this little-known play for his last production as director of the Burgtheater. Conclusion: an extremely laborious evening!

The fact that the farewell in the summer is not a voluntary one and that the farewell is a disgruntled one: "Burg" director Martin Kušej already signaled this to us in the autumn with a tiresome "Misanthrope". In what will be his last production at the theater for some time, he makes it even clearer: "Orpheus Descends" tells the story of a beguilingly singing young hero and comforter of all women, who rises like a redeemer above a reactionary Southern town, where he is burned to death at the end. That sits well. Unfortunately, the work from 1957 is not one of the better ones by the prolific American author Tennessee Williams: the political message is clumsily exhibited and the lavishly used symbols, preferably borrowed from the animal world, are suspected of being gay.

Kušej mobilizes an apparatus that crushes any theatrical ambition. Set designer Annette Murschetz piles dark, stage-high blocks on top of each other, which are laboriously set in motion via a revolving stage after each of the often minute-long scenes. In doing so, the director relies on a declamatory super-slow motion that causes three-hour-long paralysis.

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Fotos

Martin Reinke and Sarah Viktoria Frick are the best of the bunch, without Nina Siewert or Norman Hacker being held responsible for the result. The colorless title character Tim Werths can at least sing well, but is doubled by Oliver Welter ("Naked Lunch"), who creates discordant tones in an enigmatic Dracula adaptation.