Alexander Morfov >> news >> archive | 03.11.2016
Komissarzhevskoy's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" tours in China
Morfov's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" after William Shakespeare staged at the V. F. Komissarzhevskoy theatre (St. Petersburg, Russia) has been selected for the programme of 2016's edition of the Annual International Theatre Season Festival in Guangzhou, China. The selection this year is centered around the commemoration of the 400-th anniversaries of Shakespeare's death (1564 - 1616) as well as of the death of the Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu (1550 - 1616). Xianzu's plays are often referred to as the "Four Dreams" because of the decisive role dreams play in the plot of each. His major play is considered to be "The Peony Pavilion". The year 2016 is also a Year dedicated to theatre in Guangzhou city.
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" which premiered in 2007 and received "The Golden Soffit" theatre award has also been presented in Macedonia at the Ohrid Summer Festival (Ohrid, 2010) and at the Bitola Cultural Summer (Bitola, 2010), in Albania at the Butrint International Theatre Festival (Butrint, 2010) and in Bulgaria (Sofia, Varna). The title is one of the two Shakespearean plays that Morfov has so far staged at Komissarzhevskoy along with the no less successful "The Tempest" which premiered almost a decade earlier in 1998 and recently celebrated a 300-th performance anniversary. Both are still on the repertory in Saint Petersburg.
venue: Theatre №13 in Guangzhou
dates: 12 - 21 November.
A feature peculiar to Shakespeare is the suddenness of love. There is mutual fascination and infatuation from the very first glance, the first touch of hands. Love falls down like a hawk; the world has ceased to exist; the lovers only see each other. Love in Shakespeare fills the entire being with rapture and desire. All that is left in the Dream of these amorous passions is the suddenness of desire... Commentators have long noticed that the lovers in this quartet are hardly distinguishable from one another. The girls differ only in height and the colour of their hair... The boys differ only in names. All four lack the distinctness and uniqueness of so many other, even earlier, Shakespearian characters. The lovers are exchangeable...The entire action of this hot night, everything that has happened at this drunken party, is based on the complete exchangebility of love partners.
~ Jan Kott,“Titania and the Ass’s Head”
A Midsummer Night's Dream:
about feelings impossible to buy
about love in all of its manifestations - from somber bliss to uncontrollable passion and insanity
about the actors who never notice Gods - laughing at them
about their selfless, neverending and touching devotion to theatre
about the most ridiculous passion of all - theatre - the only dream
impossbile to forget and the only sense impossible to replace.
Read more about the production here.
© 2014 by mdemireva
