via spiegel.de / Hans Jörg Michel
Die Seele ist ein weites Land/The soul is a vast domain
Last week I finally saw Arthur Schnitzler’s Vast Domain at the Residenztheater here in Munich (Website). As usually Schnitzler deals with ordinary people’s inner lives and this time he describes how behaviour that seems like everyday – “random play” - misconduct is mingled with serious tragedies. Schnitzler is one of my favourite germanophone authors, but I hadn’t know this play before, started reading it the day before I saw it, but couldn’t finish it. At the centre there are the Hofreiters – a well established couple living at the countryside close to Vienna, around them a bunch of common people as you’d find them anywhere, connected to the Hofreiters in a variety of relations that become seriously complicated at the second glance. I believe that I won’t say too much if I reveal that Mr. Hofreiter is not averse to other women, which has made Mrs. Hofreiter so cold that you nearly start freezing after looking at her. The play starts with the funeral of a young piano player– suicide. I have to say that I didn’t like this one as much as I like Schnitzler’s La Ronde (Der Reigen) or Dream Story (Traumnovelle), but I still had an entertaining, sometimes thought-provoking evening.
The production is Martin Kusej’s debut here in Munich. The way he directed the early 20th century play surprised me in a positive way. This might reveal me as an inartistic ignorant, but I don’t like period plays that are turned to “up to date” in a forced, over the top way. I don’t like that random naked man crossing the stage totally out of context with the story, at all. I don’t like vulgar, sexual overexposure that elsewhere could only attract very young teenagers. What is supposed to be sophisticated and art in my opinion degenerates to mere pop-culture. But this is just my point of view, and of course I may be wrong! And of course I don’t dislike modern productions that are well and thoughtfully done.
In Martin Kusej’s staging of The Vast Domain there are some hints to sexuality as they exist in the original play. But the production isn’t modern or “pop” and most important: we don’t have that random naked man! ;). The actors are wearing historic clothes, the scenery matches with Schnitzler’s guidelines. Still (or better: thus) it’s full of meanings. First and at the end we’re in the Hofreiters’ garden, a labyrinth of wild tendrils. One scene plays in a jagged mountain scenery. Both pointing at different aspects of the human soul? But to me this non-modern, but sort of realistic way of staging it, makes to play so universal and contemporary.
Another very positive aspect: the casting. Most actors belong to the top-league of German theatre and film, so watching them is simply a pleasure. Among them are Juliane Köhler, Eva Mattes (Tatort) and August Zirner. But my favourite is still Tobias Moretti; I love his less literally theatric, but very natural, authentic, way of theatre-acting. He gives a brilliant Friedrich Hofreiter; it’s as if Schnitzler wrote this character just for him.
I don’t know for how long it’s running at the Residenztheatre since on their website they only show the next few weeks, but I guess that it will be on stage till at least the end of the season in summer. If you have the chance: go and watch it!
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