Ivo van Hove has, with his company, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, created an extraordinary six-hour marathon, Roman Tragedies, first staged in the UK in 2009. I was nervous about its length and the hours of angry Dutch ahead (with subtitles) and the loss of Shakespeare’s words. Not only that, but this was not to be faithfully translated Shakespeare but a looser text, inspired by Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.
But as soon as I walked into the Barbican theatre and saw Jan Versweyveld’s set, I could see we were in for an adventure. Ahead is what looks like a conference centre or departure lounge (and there will be many violent departures between 4pm and 10pm). It’s filled with potted palms, sofas and multiple screens and there is no mistaking the buzz: this production turns Shakespearean tragedy into news.
Once the first half hour is up, the audience can come and go at liberty: stroll on to the stage, buy drinks and sandwiches at bars and settle on sofas, as though to watch TV at home. A scarlet LED display offers information about our progress: “55 minutes until Julius Caesar’s death”. You can leave the auditorium at any point. The vision is global. Clocks tell you the time in Seattle, Rome, Athens. Astonishingly, time passes without dragging. It’s a strange, powerful and original immersion, and its serious purpose is to examine the way we consume news. It is demonstrated that the screen is mightier than the living moment. News is larger than life. There are irregular news flashes (I half anticipated reports on the Dutch election).
Politics is presented as a management problem. Men and women negotiate. But a hero such as Coriolanus will not be detained at any conference table, and pretty soon the potted palms go flying. As tragedy, it is disturbing and impersonal: heroic corpses look identical in the camera’s eye. The quality of acting is superb. Bart Slegers’s stillness as Tullus Aufidius is arresting, Chris Nietvelt is a captivating Cleopatra, and Hans Kesting’s Mark Antony is outstanding as he alternates between conversational and oratorical. There’s an unforgettable moment when Slegers’s Enobarbus leaves the theatre and collapses outside the car park. The camera alights on bemused pedestrians wondering, presumably, whether the desperate, ranting Dutchman in the middle of the road needs help.
