February 2004 / Saarländisches Staatstheater

Choreographie: Marguerite Donlon
musikalische Leitung: Constantin Trinks
Musik / Music: Claas Willeke/Sam Auinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Georg Philipp Telemann, u.a.
Bühne, Kostüme /Stage, Costume: Conor Murphy
Lichtdesign / Lightdesign: Lucy Carter

Länge / Length: 90 min
on stage: 18 dancers

mit/with:
Meritxell Aumedes Molinero, Olwen Grindley, Youn Hui Jeon, Hitomi Kuhara, Yong In Lee, Micol Mantini, Sarah Reynolds, Catharina Sampaio Raymundo, Ilka von Häfen, Stephen Delattre, Elmer Domdom, Constantin Georgescu, Toby Kassell, Martin Leutgeb, Matthias Markstein, Ignacio Martínez, Wolfgang Mertes, Andrea Palombi, Ruben Reniers, Raphael Saada, (Ansgar Schäfer)

Saarbrücker Zeitung:
One thing you have to give Marguerite Donlon: her pieces are true feasts for the eyes. With the richness of ideas, aesthetics and irony in the piece, the story that is told almost superfluous. ... Donlon's choreography shows its strength when she describes the situation and teasing out the psychology of the characters: The relationship between the people Lysander, Helena, Demetrius and Hermia or the struggle between Hippolyta and Theseus in the strongly expressive duet by Ilka von Häfen and Matthias Markstein. Also excellent is the distribution of roles, which is based on the personalities of the dancers.

Saarländischer Rundfunk SR3:
Donlon hat sich entschlossen, das gesamte Shakespearsche Personal auf die Bühne zu bringen. ... All diese Temperamente und ihre ständig wechselnden Beziehungen zueinander fast ohne Text treffend zu charakterisieren, ist eine große choreografische Herausforderung, die Marguerite Donlon ganz vortrefflich meistert. Donlon made the decision to put all of the Shakespearean figures on stage. ... To portray all these relationships with almost no text, with their different temperaments ant continuously changing relationships, is a huge choreographic challenge, bit one to which Marguerite Donlon rises magnificently.

Saarländischer Rundfunk SR2:
A theatre evening is over. It lasted one and three quarter hours. No interval. Those are the bare facts. The rest of it, between the opening of the curtains and the applause at the end, is a fairy tale, a dream: Bottom's dream. Donlon's magical forest, in which the chaos of love, enchantment and confusion happens, is not a forest of trees, but of washing machines. Elves and softly flowing material for Titania, queen of the fairies, emerge from these machines; and in one of them the main character, Bottom, gets put through a hot wash, is wrung out and reappears two sizes smaller than before. Bottom is the one person who can take his dream from the magic forest into the real world. Donlon uses two performers to play Bottom. The actor Martin Leutgeb makes his ballet debut. The only everyday objects on stage are washing machines. That they become the symbol of the dream is something, which the audience accepts as normal by the end of the piece. Martin Leutgeb takes a very small machine devotedly into his arms and we think: "everyone should have a washing machine." The set is by Conor Murphy, who created a large number of original costumes. Titania's elves have disco-style sparkly bodies, but look more like Teletubbies about the head. Their male counterparts are dressed in fringed chaps and cowboy hats. There are also costumes and choreography that relate to Elizabethan times. Even those who Shakespeare is not so fresh can enjoy this magical offering. The premiere audience was enchanted.

OMM:
Insgesamt folgt Donlon recht genau der shakespearschen Dramaturgie. Zu ihren stärksten Momenten findet ihre Choreographie jedoch dann, wenn sie Zustände und Konstellationen darstellt und reflektiert, wenn sie in einer Art tänzerischer Introspektion ein äußeres Geschehen kommentiert. Die zweite Stärke der Arbeit ist Donlons Humor, der zuweilen skurril, zuweilen befremdlich wirkt, aber immer überraschend anders und nie langweilig ist. (...) Großartig auch Donlons Gespür, die einzelnen Rollen mit bestimmten Tänzer-Typen zu besetzen. (...) Musikalisch gab es eine Mischung aus alt und neu, instrumental und elektronisch. Das Orchester des Staatstheaters spielte Musik barocker Meister, dazwischen gab es aus dem Lautsprecher Kompositionen von Sam Auinger und Claas Willeke, die bereits bei einer ganzen Reihe von Produktionen mit Donlon zusammengearbeitet haben.