Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter: Not good enough
Place: Toronto
Event: The Goethe-Institut celebrates CanStage’s new season by bringing German playwright Tankred Dorst for the premiere of his play "Fernando Krapp."
2 out of 4 stars
[...] Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter, which launched Matthew Jocelyn’s regime as artistic and general director at Canadian Stage on Thursday night, is definitely many steps toward the right direction that this company needs to go. [...]
The problem doesn’t lie with Tankred Dorst’s script, which is a fascinating Rubik’s cube of a story about a man, his wife and her possible lover. There are echoes of Gaslight, The Visit and No Exit about this triangle, but it’s all couched in a very contemporary way.
And the problem isn’t with Jocelyn’s ideas of how to stage the piece, or the work he’s gotten from his designers, Astrid Janson (set and costumes) and Robert Thomson (lighting). With its structurally fascinating, ever-turning set and its operatic illumination, the show looks like the more daring European works I’ve seen.
But things start to go amiss with Jocelyn’s translation, which doesn’t exactly fall trippingly off anyone’s tongue and features words like “neurasthenic” that just stop a scene dead. [...]
If so, we might be in for trouble in River City, but if he’s still struggling to adapt his theatrical vision to the realities of Toronto, then there’s hope.
There is a lot that’s good here. It’s just not good enough yet.
Event: The Goethe-Institut celebrates CanStage’s new season by bringing German playwright Tankred Dorst for the premiere of his play "Fernando Krapp."
2 out of 4 stars
[...] Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter, which launched Matthew Jocelyn’s regime as artistic and general director at Canadian Stage on Thursday night, is definitely many steps toward the right direction that this company needs to go. [...]
The problem doesn’t lie with Tankred Dorst’s script, which is a fascinating Rubik’s cube of a story about a man, his wife and her possible lover. There are echoes of Gaslight, The Visit and No Exit about this triangle, but it’s all couched in a very contemporary way.
And the problem isn’t with Jocelyn’s ideas of how to stage the piece, or the work he’s gotten from his designers, Astrid Janson (set and costumes) and Robert Thomson (lighting). With its structurally fascinating, ever-turning set and its operatic illumination, the show looks like the more daring European works I’ve seen.
But things start to go amiss with Jocelyn’s translation, which doesn’t exactly fall trippingly off anyone’s tongue and features words like “neurasthenic” that just stop a scene dead. [...]
If so, we might be in for trouble in River City, but if he’s still struggling to adapt his theatrical vision to the realities of Toronto, then there’s hope.
There is a lot that’s good here. It’s just not good enough yet.
by Richard Ouzounian, Toronto Star, 24. September 2010
info@toronto.goethe.org
Directions
