The Royal Comedians

Kast night we went to see Soulpepper's production of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Royal Comedians.  It's a sort of biography of Molière but it's really Bulgakov using the persecution of Molière by the church (and his protection by Louis XIV) to comment on freedom of expression in Stalin's Soviet Union.  In this production, directed by László Martin the parallels are emphasised by mixing sorta kinda period costumes with disorientingly 20th century lighting and sound effects and the odd cigarette burn.  It's pretty effective.  The piece also incorporates extracts from Le Bourgeois Gentihomme, L'Ecole des Femmes, Tartuffe and La Malade Imaginaire to great effect.  All these extracts are quite wittily staged which acts as a neat counterpoint to the essentially rather grim main plot.

The performances are excellent.  Diego Matamoros, as Molière and all the main characters in the excerpts, carries the action and is really good.  He's got considerable range both as a vocal and physical actor and uses it to good effect.  The rest of the cast are also excellent and the fight scenes are extremely energetic, especially seen from as close as we were.  Maybe too energetic as at one point a chair and a footlight ended up in the, fortunately empty, seat next to lemurcatta .

It's running at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts at the Distillery until sometime next month.

Don Carlo in Amsterdam

Willy Decker's 2004 production of Verdi's Don Carlo for De Nederlandse Opera is intense and claustrophobic, privileging the personal over the political. More...