The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0457  Wednesday, 26 August 2009

From:       Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:       Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Subject:    Shakespeare Sonnets at the Berliner Ensemble

Douglas Lanier posted on his Facebook Wall a link to a fascinating 
production at the Berlin Ensemble, a collaborative staging of 
Shakespeare Sonnets by avant-garde theatre director Robert Wilson and 
singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright:

http://www.youtube.com/v/55QThNw2w1U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

Wilson chose 25 of the 154 Sonnets and "created magical, dream-like 
images and scenes." "Central characters are a handsome young man, often 
called the fair youth, addressed in romantic, loving terms and an older 
lady, the dark lady, who figures as a former lover. Wilson gathers a 
wide range of Shakespearean types on stage -- fairies, fools, and the 
Queen of England; Wainwright provides the music to go with the visions." 
"In the production, men take women's roles, and women, men's roles. 
There's longing and rejection, and fighting for power. Shakespeare's 
Sonnets still feel so fresh." Wainwright uses an assortment of musical 
styles including appropriately an homage to Kurt Weill and Bertolt 
Brecht, since the Berliner Ensemble was Brecht's theater, where their 
_The Threepenny Opera_ (_Die Dreigroschenoper_) premiered in 1928.

The New York Times has described Robert Wilson as "a towering figure in 
the world of experimental theater . . . an explorer in the uses of time 
and space onstage. Transcending theatrical convention, he draws in other 
performance and graphic arts, which coalesce into an integrated tapestry 
of images and sounds." Rufus Wainwright is the son of Loudon Wainwright 
III (singer-songwriter, sometimes actor, and descendant of Peter 
Stuyvesant, the last Director-General of New Netherland) and Kate 
McGarrigle (Canadian singer-songwriter, who with her sister Anna has 
performed for forty years as the McGarrigle Sisters). I've been a fan of 
Loudon Wainwright III and the McGarrigle Sisters since my folkie period 
-- yes, one of the great traumas of my life was Dylan going electric, 
which I got over very quickly. In the past year, I have been listening 
to Rufus Wainwright, who in addition to his own compositions has 
terrific covers of some of Leonard Cohen's songs and who in June 2006 
re-created song-for-song Judy Garland's 1961 Carnegie Hall Concert with 
a 36-piece orchestra.

Since I find this such an interesting project, I am citing some links 
regarding it and Rufus Wainwright for those who are unfamiliar with him 
or his work.

***********
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,617273,00.html

Berlin Debut
Rufus Wainwright Takes Residency at Brecht's Theater
By Wolfgang Hobel

Musician Rufus Wainwright is currently rehearsing in Berlin for his 
theater debut. He's writing the music for a joint staging of 
Shakespeare's "Sonette" with legendary director Bob Wilson -- and 
suffering greatly in the process.

The young and beautiful in Berlin's nightlife scene worship him as a 
glamorous eccentric, but under the bright fluorescent lights of the 
cafeteria at the Brecht Theater on Berlin's Schiffbauerdamm street, 
singer and musician Rufus Wainwright is looking pale and even a little 
frantic.

[ . . . ]

Wainwright, popular and notorious for being a brilliantly immature 
person filled with extravagant emotions, is currently working at the 
Berlin Ensemble with a legendary avant-garde artist of the world 
theater. Bob Wilson, 67, has hired Wainwright to supply the music for a 
joint version of Shakespeare's "Sonette," which premiers on Easter 
Sunday. Of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets about the pleasures and sorrows of 
love, decay and betrayal, the two artists will use only two dozen for 
their spectacle. The theater promises a "dream journey" with sublime 
images and the "beguiling music of Rufus Wainwright."
Wilson is a stage director and playwright who, for more than 40 years, 
has arranged people and sets in fantastic puppet shows. Because of his 
reputation, what he is doing in Berlin today comes as no great surprise 
to his fans and detractors alike. After a rehearsal for "Sonette," the 
actors shuffle through the Berlin Ensemble's cafeteria, their faces 
still painted with Wilson's trademark white makeup, wearing stiff 
costumes and white fairy gowns.

[ . . . ]

Wilson, with his reputation for being a cool diva, has involved many 
great musicians in his stage productions in the past, including Lou 
Reed, Philip Glass, David Byrne and German rocker Herbert Gronemeyer. In 
1990, he directed an internationally acclaimed stage hit, "The Black 
Rider," in Hamburg with Tom Waits. "He uses a clear, extremely 
definitive design vocabulary. My job is to load it with inspiration," 
composer Wainwright says pluckily. "Of course, I know that Bob is an 
extremely sensitive person. But so am I! Maybe even a little too 
sensitive."

The courage to take emotional risks is one of Wainwright's strengths. 
The songs on his five albums combine respectable North American 
song-writing tradition (his parents are also musicians) with an 
attractive propensity for art songs and opera. His concerts are amusing, 
sometimes over-the-top celebrations of sheer allure, in which Wainwright 
combines his talkativeness and love of clowning around with 
entertainment. For critics Wainwright, who spends most of his time in 
New York, is a hero of so-called transgression pop, which toys with 
gender roles. Other representatives of the genre include furious musical 
innovators like Antony and the Johnsons and the duo CocoRosie.

**********
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,617273,00.html

The Bard in Berlin
Shakespeare's Sonnets Debut in Drag
By Christine Wahl in Berlin
04/14/2009

US stage director Robert Wilson has teamed up with pop star Rufus 
Wainwright to bring Shakespeare's sonnets to the stage in Berlin. 
Debuting on Easter Sunday, this highly stylized cross-dressing version 
of the archetypal love poems went down a storm with the audience.

It's been 400 years since William Shakespeare published his "Sonnets" 
and now they are getting the Robert Wilson treatment in Berlin. The 
renowned American theater director's cross-dressing version of "Sonette" 
debuted on Easter Sunday at the Berliner Ensemble, the theater made 
famous by Bertolt Brecht.

[ . . . ]

Wilson has selected 24 sonnets for his version and created a highly 
stylized design for each one, with lavish costumes, huge hair-dos and 
his trademark lighting and puppet-like choreography. The Texan director 
pays no head to literary theory or chronology in his version of the 
sonnets, but rather uses them to as a starting point for his typically 
surreal dreamlike worlds.

The avant-garde maestro uses Shakespearean-like gender role reversal in 
the cast but in his "Sonette" the women play men as well as men playing 
women. The 86-year-old grand dame of Berlin theater, Inge Keller, sports 
a gray pageboy wig and white face paint to play the bard himself. Jurgen 
Holtz, another doyen of Berlin theater, plays Queen Elizabeth I, while 
Sylvie Rohrer portrays the young poet.

The music is provided by pop star Rufus Wainwright who, unsurprisingly, 
has declared the sonnets timeless and whose musical accompaniment ranges 
from medieval Minnesang to the very contemporary electric guitar.

Wainwright has professed his reverence for both Brecht and the composer 
Kurt Weill, and there are echoes of their "Threepenny Opera" in some of 
his music for "Sonette." This is fitting perhaps, given that Wilson's 
version of the Brecht/Weill masterpiece is currently sold out for the 
foreseeable future at the Berliner Ensemble.

It looks like the "Sonette" could repeat that success for Wilson in 
Berlin. On Sunday the audience reacted to almost every single sonnet 
with rapturous applause and the evening was brought to a close by 
Wainwright himself coming out on stage to sing two of the sonnets before 
the final bow. At three hours the play may be over long but for fans of 
Wainwright and Wilson "all's well that ends well."

**********
Here are links to Rufus Wainwright singing his versions of Shakespeare's 
Sonnets, including the songs referred to in the last paragraph above:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR1ewfp62YY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYKWa3pYtAw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJao7bpYb2s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DolYVQNsavs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WsjqqiWlI0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb3T6F4WsDU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYd2KlRX4Vs

Rufus Wainwright Covers of Leonard Cohen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4rQ03pl2Og
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmbQEQltOwM&feature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeYCnw4wbTc

Enjoy,
Hardy

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>

DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the 
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the 
editor assumes no responsibility for them.

Subscribe to Our Feeds

Search

Make a Gift to SHAKSPER

Consider making a gift to support SHAKSPER.