Sheer Theatre

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 246, 7 January 1928, Page 20

Sheer Theatre

Reinhardt Produces Shakespeare f s ‘Dream ’ artistic imagination Sheer theatre is the sum, of Max Reinhardt’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer lights Dream.’* This production, the first of several that are to he offered by Reinhardt’s company at the Century Theatre , lifts acted drama into a realm unlimited by realistic representation, a realm akin to that of architecture and music , writes a theatrical correspondent in an American exchange. As thus staged, Shakespeare's fantasy becomes a revel of artistic imagination, fulfilling its own laws of existence, using figures that symbolise human beings and fairies alike satisfactorily. This presentation orchestrates light, sound and motion. Following a conventional overture of the prelude of Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music the lights go out and unconventionality begins. The music comes from a hidden band far up in the left balcony, for Reinhardt needs the musicians’ pit as one of his stage entrances. In the darkness the curtain has risen. Light is brought gradually into the great black tube of stage space by a procession of candle bearers who mount with stately tread from below. Out of the darkness Reinhardt conjures this dream play—he ends it by dissolving his picture into the dark. A Stage of Levels As the light increases we see the candle-bearers take their posts on the second and third levels, half-way up a construction of steps and an elliptical ramp that fills the width of the stage space and mounts many feet high at the back. A crescent of great fluted pillars sweeps around this palace of Theseus, which seems hewn out of a mountain of rock like an ancient pagan temple. Theseus and his court enter from below and take their places like a frieze on the first level of the construction of ramps. They are costumed extravagantly, as for a baroque masquerade ball. Here Reinhardt strikes the key of his interpretation and asks us to accept Shakespeare in terms of classic Austrian culture. Those who demand an English-flavoured “Midsummer Night’s Dream” will not be altogether happy in viewing this performance. To be enjoyed in its fullness, it must be accepted on the terms of the Vienna artist who has evoked it, in the same way the Russian version of the Greek “Lysistrata” had to be accepted when offered by the musical studio of the

Moscow Art Theatre. So accepted. Reinhardt unfolds a new world of strange beauty for those who have not previously witnessed his “Midsummer Night’s Dream” interpretation. Rhythms and Melodies Shakespeare’s "Dream” becomes a dream indeed as realised at the Century Theatre, a wildly beautiful Austrian improvisation upon an English poet’s theme. Reinhardt fills the eye incessantly with the rhythm and melodies of mass, line and colour in motion. The forest dryads sway in sympathetic chorus with the changing mood of their scenes with the fairy queen Titania, remaining attached as it were to their trees like mossy fronds. The rock sprites release themselves with effort from their native element and whirl Joyously as long as responsive animation sways them, melting suddenly, when the gusts of ecstasy have passed, into their caves of darkness. Puck becomes a humorous imp. straight out of a fairy tale by Grimm as visualised by theGithe Sokoloff. He seems to have the attributes of cat. dog, lizard and faun, rather than of man, in his mischievous services to Oberon, king of the fairies. When Puck administers the potion that turns topsy-turvy the romances of Hermia and Lysander and Demetriuu with Helena, Sokoloff worms across the stage with his forearms providing the sole source of locomotion. The distracted lovers, with Puck in full'chase scamper up and down the ramps in and out of the caves like members of a disturbed colony of squirrels. Fairies as Grace Notes In Reinhardt’s notations of movement and coloured light, mortals may

be regarded as tones and grace notes. Only Oberon is tk ception: a superhuman figure a£ picted by Moissi. In Moissi «■* speech blend. He breaks ea*t an aria from a delivery that 1»» v tapestry of word expression. of stress, kaleidoscopic slides, c* of pitch with every change «* fluid dynamics — all these mid use of his remarkable vo * c *r fc L | voice for heroic moods, a vofc*; can soar unfalteringly like *■■■■■ | hardt’s through exalted pa»®l® great length. It it a voice * volume that it could ride the e* a chorus of sound. . A : : Like Bernhardt, too, Moissi * sculptor’s feeling for pictorial Magnificent was his play wttj I *’;A a single ruddy note introduced of his cool-toned scenes by B®" as tellingly as Corot used value of a peasant’s red cap idyllic, misty green landscape* All this and much morc awaits audiences at “Dream,” if they but accept terpretation on the artist’s they must also accept the of Shakespeare’s airy into vital and clanging Tjjw There is the serio-comic romjj the bemused Lysander and as acted by the Brothers rude humours of the seem to go well in any langiWF grace of Lili Darvas as Tit»** fairy dancing of Tilly statuesque sweetness of Pinchot’s Helena, the antics §* Kreutzberg as a sprite who earth-bound. Continuous Action | The play is given in two only the single intermission cm | in the continuous action . | scene is accomplished wlifl* | screens ascend during a baJHJ | fairies, and the walls of $ melt into the shadowed | a great forest for the woodlaiio Moonlight plays upon the Sunset glows illumine the re® the mechanics and part of t stage lifts up to provide their room in Quince’s house- *•» The audience cheered when part ended and redoubled their at the end, when joined the principals of W* j receive the applause. Not t®* ** the pleasures of that great must have been derived from sation that they were ] accomplished artist of the >M do with a noteworthy ccm v : together year in and * \ working on the basis of rep® ensemble. t * iH® This New York the auspices of Gilbert Miller* and English manager.