Leonce and Lena
by Georg Buchner
directed by Gabor Tompa
Teatrul Maghiar Stat de Cluj
The main stage of the Sala Mare has been completely transformed, and the house is moved onto the stage. It's amazing to me the man power behind this festival. The set is a dilapidated, dusty room in the grand French style of the 19th century. There are divans and chairs scatter about, a sink. The walls are crumbling, and there are big windows on the back and at the sides. It's my first time every using a headseat for translation. The show begins, the entire company pops there heads through the little doorway at upstage left with their powdered wigs and grand costumes in the same French style. The slowly move to the middle of the stage in silence, en masse. They pause stage center, realize their dusty. It's funny. It's a great image. It's my favorite scene in the play. I realize straight away that my headset doesn't work. It's just static. I am searching through all of the channels, trying to find something. Nothing. I give up. There are Romanian supertitles, so my Romanian will have to carry me through Buchner. There are little dance numbers, and irreverant sequences, which start off somewhat charming. They become pretty repetitive. The quiet little arias sung by the actors are interesting. The performers are all very precise. Loránd Váta brings embodies the imbicility of the king, with the tense muscularity of his performance. Balázs Bodolai as Leonce is perfectly non-chalant, and has a great presence on stage. The "love story" between Leonce and Lena is distanced and muted by director, a really strong and fascinating commentary on this sort of love. Their scenes are stripped of feeling. And when the two lovers are at last married, they turn into rigid dolls that fall on their sides. I didn't know what was being said, but this came across clearly to me, so bravo to the production. The physicality of the ensemble is really impressive, acting on chairs with three legs, tumbling backwards off of chairs with two legs.
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