Metaphors are translucent veils, that permit the things they disguise to be seen, or fancy dresses, under which the person, who is masked, is perceivable. Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715-1780)
Considering all the reviews I've read of this play and performance so far I desperately miss one interpretation of this complex, philosophical play, that stroke me from the moment I first read it in March. Naturally as it is a seldomly staged play most reviews do also contain reviews of the play rather than the actual performance. So this is where I will be beginning as well.
From my first encounter I started calling Hilde a wonderful, cunning, cleansing agent provocateur. How easily she unties the web that entangles all the characters in Solness' household. How cleverly she cuts through lies and false pretences until everything is revealed to her and us, the audience. After all she and the audience are the only ones who see the whole picture. I've come to realise that the play actually hinges on this one character, what or who is she actually? In their final dialogue she urges Solness to do the impossible and this is exactly the phrase employed by Barnett Newman in a conversation with the art critic Thomas B Hess when describing the act of creating a work of art. During the same conversation there is the muse mentioned yelling in the artist's ear, and that is what determines my my view on Hilde. She is the yelling muse. The lead of reading the play as a comment on/ description of art, the artist and producing art grew very intriguing and urgent indeed. The parallels to Newman's writings are too numerous to mention, yet here is one because it came to me while actually watching the play performed. Newman rejects what he calls "fetish" art and prefers what he terms the living subject-matter, the fetish in his view is merely aesthetic but the subject-matter is sublime. When Alina tells Hilde of her dolls, they became the fetish in my mind. Interesting that Alina's grief for the fetish would be the cause for her children's death. - Of course this might be a projection because Alina might have been too over-whelmed by the loss of her off-spring but then the chronology of events given by Solness rather suggests that the loss of the dolls was the cause for Alina's illness that also infected her sons. At this moment I wonder if it would go too far to hint at Paul de Man, who very sharply warns in his writings from bitter experience against the aestheticising of politics.
The veil of the metaphor was giving way and the ending began to shine in a non-tragic light because it shows the artist doing the impossible, i e climbing the steeple, communicating with god and building castles in the sky.
Back to the actual performance at Chichester. The two of them I had the pleasure to attend (especially the one on Tuesday!!) were outstanding. The text was delivered to the point, leaving me to wonder that this was just a recital, the acting, highlighting gestures and features very precisely, was superb. There was this little incident -though certainly not planned or rehearsed - where a button on the sleeve of Solness' jacket got tangled up in Kaja's bun, that turned out to be brilliant :-). It added to the thrill and tension of being nearly caught in a less than favourable situation by Alina. On the other hand it was strange to perceive that though the audience was present and the impetus to help could clearly be felt, there was no way anyone else could assist to get Emily Wachter out of this awkward situation. We just could not simply reach through the fourth wall. At this point I'd like to thank you in order of appearance John McEnery, Emily Wachter and Philipp Cumbus, Michael Pennington, Maureen Beattie and Pip Donaghy and Naomi Frederick for their wonderful performance in this very intimate theatre, and of course Philip Franks, Stephen Brimson Lewis, Tim Mitchell, Matthew Scott and John Leonard etc.
There are certain scenes that especially shone:
At the beginning of the play Solness is by Michael Pennington portrayed as an arrogant and disagreeable self-absorbed man. He reigns supreme in his kingdom - maybe even down to the droit de seigneur (?!) - but halt!, alas there is apparently no actual sex for Solness, the relationship with Kaja though intense feels rather "platonical", Alina has been cold ever since her family home burnt to ashes and even the supposed intercourse with Hilde a decade ago rather has an air of mutual delusion . There is this scene between Old Brovik and Solness, when Michael displays this royal gesture of most graciously granting a privilege to Brovik, when he being (terminally) ill asks for the simple comfort of being allowed to sit down in front of Solness. This definitely made me gasp, how very wicked and unconsiderate - especially when accompanied by such a gesture :-)!!!
Maureen Beattie was stunning as Alina in her coldness and dutiful reservedness. Her piercing "knowing" eyes made me shiver, as did Michael Pennington for quite the contrary reasons when Solness, driven by the liberating spirit of Naomi Frederick's Hilde, finally breaks down or opens up, and challenges his god just before his final stunt. The interaction between these two central characters of Hilde Wangel and Halvard Solness gets very intense in this final scene. I felt reminded of an incident that happened to me years ago, when I was still studying art, there was a discussion I had with a professor during one of his seminars, when an interpretation of his of something I had said culminated in a glimpse of recognition between the two of us, which hit me very, very deeply in my very foundations.
I sincerely hope that I met with Newman's standards who claimed that a review or criticism always should be passionate. A warm embrace to the lovely crowd at Chichester. Enchantée!!!
