Not always convincing: Ali Berber as Romeo (front), here in a scene with Karin Klein as Countess Capulet, in the Darmstadt production
Image: Nils Heck
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The most famous love drama in theater history is visually impressive in Christoph Mehler’s Darmstadt production, but a central idea is missing.
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Darmstadt ⋅ When the stage lights go on in the main building of the Staatstheater Darmstadt, a danse macabre that is as menacing as it is impressive begins. In the black-and-white negative film, the characters in the drama move in hectic movements, repeatedly shouting “Juliet!” or “Romeo!” and stretching their arms in the air. The two named, not yet recognizable as individuals in the dancing crowd, are clearly doomed, their death an inevitable fate from these first strong moments of the evening.
Christoph Mehler’s staging of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet” is impressive as a visual spectacle, but is still not entirely convincing. Because the great visual ideas can hardly cover up the fact that Mehler is missing a central idea that goes beyond the strong dance of death metaphor and answers the question of what the love of these two young people from hostile families is all about, why they do not love whether their death is really so inevitable and many more questions.
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