Successful start to the season at the Grazer Schauspielhaus: the theater opens the last season of Iris Laufenberg’s artistic directorship with Oscar Wilde’s comedy “Being serious is everything”. The plot, if you like to call it that, revolves around two British gentlemen who, for the sake of amusement, share an alter ego who soon gets in their way in love matters. “Bunbury oder Ernst ist is everything!” is the name of the version worked out in Graz, in which Wilde’s best bon mots are dashed off the ramp in the English original and in the German translation.
Of course, “Bunbury” works as a comedy mainly because it tells of the tight morals of its time, in which the only way to be yourself is to pretend. And of course the play, which premiered in 1895, can no longer be viewed today without bearing in mind that in the same year Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison for his relationship with a man and was ostracized by the high society that he talks about in his plays when one of their relatives had so elegantly made fun of it. Note: The good company is merciless.
Director Claudia Bossard must have had that in mind when, in a black-and-white jungle of suppressed desires (set design and costumes: Elisabeth Weiß), she confidently tells the story of the tangles of love and identity in this good society, giving them a distinctly queer component. In any case, it is not clear who actually stands on whom here. Love exists on both sides of gender boundaries, and in the end a pair of brothers who have only just been brought together by fate will sink into an intimate kiss that has nothing in common with brothers and sisters.
The two are played with great gusto by Andri Schenardi and Frieder Langenberger, who Bossard contrasts with Lisa Birke Balzer and Maximiliane Haß, an equally funny female duo. But the courtship of the four, in Wilde still clearly dealt with in rows of two, frays here, the strict guardian of morals Lady Bracknell (Evamaria Salcher) is caught up in the confusion as well as the staid pastor (Fredrik Jan Hofmann) and the governess Miss Prism (Katrija Lehmann). ). Somewhere, somehow, desire has to create an outlet. On the stage of the theater there is also a shovel of gothic romance, vampire comedy and language acrobatics in play, along with plenty of body comedy in precisely timed choreography (Marta Navaridas). It’s all pretty sexy together. And very entertaining.
Bunbury. Ernst sein is everything! By Oscar Wilde. Playhouse Graz.
Director: Claudia Bossard.
Stage & Costumes: Elizabeth White.
With: with Frieder Langenberger, Andri Schenardi, Alexej Lochmann, Evamaria Salcher, Lisa Birke Balzer, Maximiliane Hass, Katrija Lehmann, Fredrik Jan Hofmann.
Next performances: 28 September, 1, 5, 7, 18 and 20 October and 11 and 24 November at 7.30 p.m.
www.schauspielhaus-graz.com