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Voila! Theatre Festival
A confusing cabaret based on the life of writer Stefan Zweig, where conclusions never quite seem to be made.Summary
Rating
Ok
I knew nothing about the life of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig before attending this cabaret based on his work and existence, and problematically that fact hasn’t really changed afterwards. There are some interesting ideas explored, the seven strong cast all put in strong performances and a number of songs are sung in an appealing manner, but it manages to last an hour without saying anything particularly conclusive.
The cast perform monologues based on the writers’ life and times, with Zweig best known for writing a number of biographies about figures including Honoré de Balzac, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Marie Antoinette. But it doesn’t comment on this other than a brief reference where it suggests that he was fascinated by the lives of others but didn’t imagine anyone would be interested in his own story. He might have been right to believe that as well, as his life is quite sketchily told here. We learn when he was born but little else about his childhood, with the play more interested in covering the major events that occurred during his lifetime rather than anything particularly personal. This wouldn’t be an issue at all if the contents contained depth, but much of it feels slapdash and pieced together without any interest in creating a cohesive narrative.
Images and text are presented using an old school projector, something that takes up a fair amount of time as transparencies are replaced, but again, other than providing some occasional pictures of the man, it seems superfluous. The same applies with the songs, one number in Hebrew is beautifully sung but it doesn’t connect with the rest of the hour, and a version of “It’s A Long Way To Tipperary” which is accompanied by the hint of a strip tease is absurd and confusing. That’s also the case with a portrayal of Adolf Hitler in white face in the final third, it’s hard to see the point of such a decision.
Thematically it plays around with the idea that there were three times when Zweig could have attempted to save the world, or the country’s he lived in could have at least, yet it’s never developed upon, only repeated. The same applies with its condemnation of fascism, which seems so broad that it’s almost funny, yet the tragedies which occurred as a result of it are of course horrendously bleak and upsetting.
Perhaps if I’d known more about Stefan Zweig before watching the production I would have understood what was being attempted, and maybe there’s a lot more going on here than appears at surface level. But for any others uninitiated in the man’s work it’s hard to suggest that this is worthwhile viewing, as the many disparate parts made for a very unsatisfying whole.
Performed by: Adam Hypki, Zora Owen, Yanina Hope, Abraham Kleinman, Nadav Antman Ron, Zuza Tehanu and Tanya Lyalina
Musician: Pini Brown
Written and directed by: Anya Ostrovskaia.
Scenography by: Shahaf Beer
Produced by: Jack Michael Carr.
The World Of Yesterday has completed its current run.
