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Wood lost in a forest of trees
Forests Old Rep * Watching a man in a dress with a bucket
on his head climbing up and down a wall, it is surely fair for a
reviewer, or theatre-goer for that matter, to ask themselves ‘just what
is the director trying to say to me here?' The problem is that after the 100 agonisingly
slow minutes of Calixto Bieito's Forests I was still no clearer as to
the answer. Inspired by Shakespeare's frequent use of forests
as a backdrop, symbol, secret hiding place, location for transformation
and even as part of the plot, Bieito has put together this mishmash of a
production. Staged at Birmingham's Old Rep and largely set to
Shakespeare's verse, it is as impenetrable as the forests it inhabits.
Sure it starts with an innocent looking wood in which lots of people run
around happy as Larry. Then the forest is literally ripped apart and the
innocence is replaced by darkness but beyond that all is a tired
confusion. It is as though, without any clear narrative
pattern, Bieito has thrown just about every idea he possibly could into
the mix. So we have nudity, we have rape, we have lesbianism, we have
cross-dressing, we have suicide, we have suffocation, we have
masturbation, we have self-harming, we have murder . . . need I go on? Bieito read all of The Bard's works before creating Forests and the production does have a little of the ‘Complete Works of Shakespeare in 100 Minutes' about it. There is no doubt that many of these subjects appear graphically in Shakespeare's texts. But Bieito offers no exploration of the ideas either within Shakespeare's works or in a new context. FRENZIED With one supposedly shocking scene chasing
the other in a frenzied dash around the stage, Forests quickly becomes
tedious and frankly unpleasant at times. The difficulty, if you will excuse the pun, is
that we can't see the wood for the trees. With so much going on we lose
any sense of purpose, plot or characterisation. There is no doubt Bieito knows his Bard and can
be clever with the verse – juxtaposing characters and plays in an
intricate interplay of verse. And there is a level of entertainment in
playing ‘spot the quote' with yourself as each line unfolds. The cast, which includes George Costigan,
certainly rise to the challenges of the piece and give enthusiastic
performances while the set, a single tree set into a giant white box, is
captivating in its apparent simplicity. But what is particularly frustrating about
Forests is a sense of missed opportunity. Bringing together Bieito with
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Barcelona Internacional Teatre and the
Royal Shakespeare Company as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, it
could have been a really insightful and entertaining exploration of The
Bard's use of the forest motif. Instead this crass and dull foray into the woods
adds nothing to our understanding of Shakespeare nor does it create a
new work which is anything more than a talking point. To 15-09-12 Diane Parkes
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