Corrential hustle and bustle in “What you want” – here at the National Theater Mannheim directed by Christian Weise
Photo: Christian Kleiner
If you are interested in the stage in Germany, you may have noticed it: Shakespeare’s late comedy “What you want” is currently being played up and down. Sure, the piece has been one of the most played of the comrade for a while. Nevertheless, this accumulation has been striking lately.
The Volkstheater in Munich and Rostock, the Schauspiel Stuttgart and the Theater Coburg, the Dortmund Theater and Berlin Theater an der Parkaue played the fabric. This was followed by the Schauspiel Köln, the Dresden State Theater, the National Theater in Weimar and in Mannheim as well as the Munich chamber games. And that alone in the last two seasons. For the next theater season, the Berlin Ensemble and the Thalia Theater in Hamburg – not insignificant houses – have already put “what you want” on the game plan.
Genosse Shakespeare
As you like it: Every two weeks, Erik Zielke writes about great tragedies, political lubricating theater and the fools from the past and present. He finds inspiration from his comrade from Stratford-Upon-Avon.
You can find all columns here.
Why is this drama of all people? The Carnivalesque confusion comedy, located in distant Illyria, is about the twin couple Viola and Sebastian, who suffers a ship accident, the latter believed in his sister. And she deals with Illyria’s Duke Orsino and the Countess Olivia, who loves to love. Viola soon appears as a man and under the name Cesario, in the services of Orsinos, where she visibly likes. However, Cesarios tends to take the countess in herself. In turn, this is also desired by a bump of her uncle. They mix the whole thing, supported by the wise fools. And then Sebastian appears, who can hardly be distinguished from his husband. But then – of course! – everything is still fine and everyone thinks he or she belongs to.
But why is this piece played so often in our time? Don’t other Shakespeare dramas come closer to our today, shaped by war and power-obsessed potatoes? Or is “what you want” the cheerful and clever change from the disasters surrounding us?
Possibly something else can be read about this game plan policy tendency: Maybe the playful handling of a role, identity, gender a comeback, well -groomed by the comrade Shakespeare, may celebrate a comeback? There are people who think the rigid left -wing identity policy, as we have encountered in recent years, come to an end. As is well known, the actor of Viola was a man who played a woman who played a man playing a man at the Shakespeare era when the theater stage was reserved. But that made a good part of the joke.
If you put aside neo -essentialism, open the drawer cabinet and categorize the categorization, then you can leave the cultural struggle to the right – from the saying knocker Merz to the louder fascists – and encounter the madness with Shakespeare’s sense of humor. That could mean fun.