Galathea please come back!
Galathea Bleibt - Staatsoper Hannover, 16th February, 2013
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Being a most busy bee in last weeks I never got around to finish this till this week but at last I had some time to sit down and put into words.A week after the stunning "Grey Gardens" I was off to Hanover for a show called "Galathea Bleibt" (Galathea stays) written by Martin G. Berger who also directed it, music by Jasper Sonne and piano arrangements Oliver Imig .
The press release said the following about the show:
"As already George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" and (...) "My Fair Lady" this show dedicates itself to a modern version of the antique myth, in which the sculptor Pygmalion fell in love with the statue Galathea, he created. In this show though the statue has her say - and she can tell of other things. In 25 scenes and 12 completely new songs the relationship is "re-explored", for the first time including developments in the new millennium. The infectious score is a mix of chanson, jazz, disco and musical, modern and traditional at the same time.
Story: A woman sits alone in a huge house. Her husband is dead, murdered. She begins to remember how she, when her younger self worked as a prostitute, got the chance to live in the house of an elder professor for language and get private lessons. How she then eventually was ready to be part of the high society but then suddenly could not move neither backward nor forward and was forced to stay with the professor. Forever. Ten years pass by and raise the question: What does language mean in our society? In what kind of forms can you actually live together with someone else in our society? And at last but not least is there actually still a society?"
I need to confess "My Fair Lady" is one of my guilty pleasures. I adore the show, am touched by the story and especially the most beautiful music having seen several productions of it. I do not really travel much for it these days as it is on in way too many rep theatres but travelled to e.g. Aarhus just for the show when an English production was on tour in Denmark in the past, so I was intrigued by it. That it was written by Martin G. Berger having seen the great two shows he directed was also a reason to go.
The show had its premiere originally in Berlin in November last year but I could not go so to see it in Hanover was most welcoming (as it also meant I could go home after the show without staying overnight ;-) ).
It was on in Hanover's opera, not in the main hall (obviously) but in one of the rehearsal rooms which you got to via the stage door and which was just big enough for around 80 people. It was relatively busy, not sure how many people were there but having been to good unknown shows with just around 20 people in the audience I was pleasantly surprised (though I could have done without some bitchy male audience members around me - as bad as women sometimes).
But this being a one woman musical, the focus totally on her, it is also a subjective perception, her memories, maybe even mixed up with other memories not connected to it, not automatically the truth, maybe even a (white) lie, a fairy tale, the way it is told, the way it is directed, the way it is acted is most fascinating even when as in the first minutes Ms Klotz just sits there on-stage first with a rather lost gaze, then some moments of staring at the audience or maybe something else attracting her attention, then eventually starting to look around nervously and to recite a monologue about the death of the king and what she is feeling about it and you start to wander whether she is mad, serious or something in-between.
She starts to share her life then with the audience though is she really doing that or is she just soliloquising? But whatever it is she delivers an insight, whether true or not, into her soul and her mental state for which e.g. she uses little yellow post-it's stick to the set of two portable walls or even herself (as on picture above) with words handwritten on them or the use of a video camera as in a TV show apparently which seems to be set to night mode as basic colour usually all green as so common for videos filmed in the dark she talks into with the actual video visible for the audience usually on the walls when she may not be as hiding behind a wall or the desk giving close ups of her face usually.
It is actually hard to describe most of the scenes due to the large amount of ideas as a twist to her and the professor's relationship (which is not to be spoilt as I think among some others ;-) ) with some scintillating and witty dialogues and lyrics though it never felt being overloaded , you must see the show, I was so amazed by how craftily each scenes was depicted and staged with the simple set, not more than the walls, a chair, a desk which even turned into a dance floor when she is out clubbing and dancing one night making most use of the rather small stage.
There are some moments in the show that cause question marks and stay unanswered but I can live with that as it makes the piece so human, so normal - too often in in life you are left/stuck in a situation when you e.g. want an explanation for something but you are just not getting it or you are just left with one unsatisfying.
That also goes for the end in which there are indications that something rather bad happened but then there are also things happening that if the bad thing happened the other things cannot really have happened. Does that make sense? Most probably not much, but that pretty much is the end when it is not to be spoilt leaving more question marks for the audience - or maybe not if you make up your own truth or what you feel must have really happened after watching the protagonists for the last 1 1/2 hours. I though left the questions totally unanswered after a few tries for myself as whatever "solution" I came up with I could refute with something and it did not bother me neither and that end actually underlines even more the well-thought-out book and direction.
But a good book and a good direction would be not a lot without the right actor, well actress in this case. And Julia Klotz just IS right for this part most probably delivering one of her finest performances being so manifold, so diverse in her play whatever the complex piece demands of her. There are these tiny moments in the show when she would just move an eyebrow but it was all so excellently accentuated, but also the bigger moments when she e.g. goes nightclubbing she just continues to own the stage. What a mind-blowing and jaw-dropping performance.
Supported well by pianist Oliver Imig who was hidden behind another portable wall left to the stage the score by Jasper Sonne, while so versatile covering various music genres, it was also very consistent following a certain flow and left a great impression that overall I went home being just stunned by the whole package that was delivered to me and want the show to return to a stage sometime soon.
