This may well be the least “directorial”
production I have ever seen on a German stage. The kind of
Regietheater for which the country
has a deserved reputation is entirely absent, unless you count piddling
minor decisions such as putting the entire deserted-office set on a
permanent but extremely slow revolve, or the cross-gender casting of
one role in order to address the lack of women in the cast. Director
Stephan Kimmig’s cautious approach may be due simply to the fact that
Schiller’s work is one of the landmarks of German drama.
It has to be said, though, that during the 1783-87 course of the play’s
composition, he did change his mind as to what it’s actually about. It
began as a complex family drama in which Don Carlos, Prince of
Asturias, continues to be in love with his former betrothed Elisabeth
of Valois even after his father, Philip II of Spain, takes her as his
own queen and Carlos’s stepmother. However, once Carlos’s best friend
and confidant the Marquis of Posa arrives, the various romantic
intrigues become mixed up with and gradually subordinate to Posa’s main
preoccupation, the struggle of the Dutch for freedom from Spanish rule.
Carlos’s yearnings may have been romantic with a small “r”, but
Schiller found himself more engaged by the capital-R cause of a
nation’s freedom.
This shows not just in the general narrative tack of the play, but in
the brute amount of stage time given to the two young men. At curtain
calls on the opening night, audience response was audibly warmer for
Andreas Döhler as Posa; Alexander Khuon’s performance as Carlos is not
radically less organic or naturalistic, it’s simply that Döhler has
more minutes onstage and more stirring moments. Ulrich Matthes as King
Philip is also a pensive man, quite sincere when he says, “I do not
want to be a tyrant,” yet finding himself in the tug of an irresistible
current. But three and three-quarter hours of sober consideration all
round can prove excessive, and leave you secretly wishing for a
gratuitous alpaca onstage or something of the kind. Just a little one.
Written for the Financial
Times.