I am certainly not the first, nor will I be the last, to admit that German theatre is strange. I am a big fan of all things German and all things theatre, but German theatre?? Even I don't understand all of that.
As I was cruising YouTube looking for German versions of King Lear (I just did a search for "König Lear" and found 46 results), I found a few trailers for theatre productions done in various cities in Germany, like Köln, Cottbus, and Hamburg.
From these trailers we get a feel into the staging, costuming, and direction and I repeat : The Germans are Weird.
In two of these productions that I found, Lear was a woman, one had her with three sons, completely reversing the traditional gender roles. An interesting directorial choice, I wonder how that would change the meaning or effect of the play?
Two productions had an Oriental feel to them, with actors running around with wooden kendo swords. ??? Though I was impressed with the rotating, slanted stage that they had, that would certainly be fun to play around with!
Two productions used actual water during the storm scene! One (with some sort of three-person, red-nosed fool) had a garden hose spraying on Lear and the Fool the whole time. Another had Lear and the Fool walking around with buckets of water, pouring them on their heads. As a techie I was cringing as I saw this -- how can they pour so much water on the stage, what are the logistics of that?
One production started with Lear swinging from a rope in the middle of the stage, (I guess as a preamble to his madness?) with the giant letters NOTHING on the wall behind him.
Most interesting, though I guess not surprising since this is European theatre, one production took the lines in the script quite literally and had Lear completely naked during the storm. From the trailer you don't really see anything, as he's curled up in the fetal position, lying on the stage, but he's definitely not wearing any clothes. That's one way of interpreting the text, I suppose.
This was all very fascinating, I would love to see an actual live performance of Lear, I'm sure you can get so much more out of it that reading the text, or even seeing a movie. I just don't think I'll see one in Germany!!
