Dante at the Zurich Schauspielhaus: Britney Spears meets Dante in the hell of life
In the hell of life, Britney Spears meets Dante
The Zurich in-house director Christopher Rüping cast the lament about finiteness with a great ensemble in a comfortingly lively form on the peacock.
Christopher Rüping’s lightness of appearance is not unbearable, but fluffy. He dabs on theatrical worlds like a delicate pointillist picture, even if they also deal with difficult questions such as recently in “Border” belonging and outsiderness or now in “The New Life” the struggle for consolation due to finiteness and missed opportunities.
The full title of the approximately two-hour piece is “The New Life – Where Do We Go from Here”, loosely based on Dante Alighieri, Meat Loaf and Britney Spears, and thus combines an early work by Dante (“La vita nuova”, ca. 1293). pop lyrics. And in the way the whole evening does it: completely relaxed. convincing. That is why one answer to the play’s question is “Where do we go from here?” also: to Berlin. This production, developed by the Zurich resident director in Bochum, will make it to the Berlin Theatertreffen in spring 2022, for the German-language selection of the best, and can now be seen in Zurich.
Dante tells how, as a 9-year-old, he fell in love with a girl of the same age in a blood-red dress, how his yearning totally dominated him for years and how he secretly mentioned numerous sonnets to his Beatrice – which can also be found in his little book – until after her death 24 years beyond. His new life began with the first meeting, but the beloved, historically probably Beatrice Portinari, never found out about his love.
“But why not?” asks actor William Cooper. ‘Why don’t you say so, huh? Just say. Spit out.” It doesn’t work, no matter who tried it: the Australian performer Damian Rebgetz, the German actress Henni Jörissen (she was engaged in Zurich for a long time) or the Dutch actress Anne Rietmeijer.
They all alternately play pain, devotion and rebellion when, in their inspired children’s clothes, the tunics, the wide trousers, they sometimes play the adolescent Dante, sometimes the desperate Britney. They address their doing-as-if and yet they are wonderfully right in the middle of it.
The automatic piano, ghostly and downright tongue-in-cheek, sometimes counteracts the increasingly grandiose ensemble. Then again, it accompanies the four when they, as tormented soloists or in the cat choir, intonate Meat Loaf’s “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, Britney’s “Baby One More Time” or Natasha Bedingfield’s ” These words”. Rietmeijer Bedingfield’s “I love you, I love you, I love you” expresses that woe that Dante cultivated and celebrated in poems. The fulfillment of his love would have been the death of his art, he ponders the ensemble later.
To indulge
And Rüping does not stop at the early work, but adds Dante’s “Divina Commedia” to the search for the lost opportunity. First the four hike through the circles of hell, which were equipped with a mercilessly rotating light beacon by stage designer Peter Baur. A visually stunning, dramaturgical but a little lengthy intermezzo. Finally they end up in paradise with the aged Beatrice: an acting festival for the 76-year-old Belgian Viviane De Muynck.
She sometimes ironically knocks out a “calendar saying” like “All of life is a run to death”. Because she has sentimentalities. But when the five of them sing Danger Dan together in the finale – “we’ll crumble to dust, we’ll turn to ashes”, but well, “not today” – then, yes, you just want to be silent, consoled for a moment.
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