Review: Roman Tragedies @ Adelaide Festival - Shakespeare plays, CNN style

There was huge anticipation from the audience waiting to enter the Festival Theatre of the Adelaide Festival Centre.   We were keen to see how Dutch director Ivo Van Hove was going to condense and combine 3 of the Shakespeare political plays, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra,  into a 6-hour production.  On top of that, the production would be set in a world of live media and reporting.   The performance Roman Tragedies was staged by Toneelgroep Amsterdam as one of the key productions of the Adelaide Festival 2014. Audience were free to choose which sections of the auditorium to watch the show, even the performing area. I decided to start with the circle seats.  The screen on top of the stage would either provide commentary on historical events, quotes from famous people and do a live feed of the incidents.

For this staging, it was clever to set in a newsroom format.  News headlines and comments were constantly updated on screen and we were following the story being unfolded "live". Audience were also encourage to tweet and text during performances too.

After the first segment of Coriolanus, the audience was allowed on stage to observe the action, sit on the couch, buy a drink from the bar, and also observe the cast getting ready.  It did give a sense of "live" feeling and that you were involved in the situation.

I went on stage at one point.  While it was interesting to wander around the acting area, the novelty factor wore off after a while.  Fortunately, the director's main focus was on the staging, and he was aptly supported by the good ensemble.

Coriolanus and Julius Caesar were pretty straight forward affair, albeit executed well.  When we came to Julius Caesar, most audience (including me) were outside the auditorium at times getting something to eat or just getting a break.  The production team had even placed monitor screens at the foyer area so that we could still follow the action on stage.

While the first two segments moved at a slower pace, the momentum picked up eventually.

The climax of the evening would definitely be the last part of the trilogy, Antony and Cleopatra.  The pace picked up and it was also where all audience were moved back to the auditorium for the latter scenes. The tension was there and the acting was engaging, even though most of us had to rely on the surtitles to understand the dialogue.  

So, was the hype surrounding this production justified?  Definitely.  While certain scenes may be slow, in particular Julius Caesar, Ivo Van Hove had succeeded in stringing these 3 plays into one coherent piece.  The staging was refreshing and the cast was definitely great.  It definitely deserved the long standing ovations from the crowd.  And the crowd even stayed back after the curtain calls to read all the texts and commentaries projected onto the screen.  Shakespeare managed to find a new life in this millenium.