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Shakespeare's Sonnets Presented by the Berliner Ensemble at the Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City. October 7-12, 2014. By Robert Wilson and Rufus Wainwright. Directed and designed by Robert Wilson. Co-directed by Ann-Christin Rommen. Sonnet selection and dramaturgy by Jutta Ferbers. Lighting by Robert Wilson. Music by Rufus Wainwright. Costumes by Jacques Reynaud. Music direction by Hans-Jörn Brandenburg and Stefan Rager. Lighting by Andeas Fuchs and Ulrich Eh. With Krista Birkner ( Young Poet), Dejan Bucin (Gentleman/Lady), Anke Engelsmann (Secretary), Traute Hoess (Rival), Jürgen Holtz (Elizabeth I/ Elizabeth II), Ursula Höpfner-Tabori (Black Lady), Nadine Kiesewalter (Boy), Christopher Nell (Lady/Eve), Angela Schmid (Shakespeare), Katharina Susewind (Boy), Sabin Tambrea (Woman/Lady), Georgios Tsivanoglou (Cupid), and Angela Winkler (Fool).
The Berliner Ensemble's performance of twenty-five of Shakespeare's sonnets at the Brooklyn Academy of Music raised a number of questions for me-some thought-provoking, others simply frustrating. Ultimately, though, this production largely failed to acknowledge the spectacle of dramatic poetry with which Shakespeare's verse was already in dialogue. Despite referencing Shakespeare's sonnets, director Robert Wilson and composer Rufus Wainwright instead preferred to engage with their own lexicon to generate a provocative and affective spectacle in response to Shakespeare. But little else was generated besides spectacle, unfortunately.
For this production, Wilson employed the same stylistic markers- starkly minimalist settings, luminous backdrops on which bands of glowing light slowly rise or fall, and actors in bright white makeup looking like merry or morbid ghouls (Fig.10)-that rightfully earned him praise for the original German version of this production, as well as for his BAM production of The Threepenny Opera....