Arts and Entertainment
Woyzeck Theater Review
By Taylor Coe '13, Arts & Entertainment Editor
November 10, 2011
Woyzeck is a fascinating play that stands somewhat alone in theatre history, a strikingly original work far ahead of its time. The author of the play, George Büchner, wrote the play in his early twenties and died in 1837, before he could complete it. The play tells the story of German soldier Franz Woyzeck, who, through a combination of social pressures and jealousy, descends into madness, eventually killing his lover Marie, with whom he has a child, due to her interest in another soldier.
Through Woyzeck, Büchner demonstrates that he was ahead of his time as both a writer and a thinker. The expressionistic style of the play directs one to comparisons with much later playwrights in a post-WWI world. But, beyond the innovative writing, there are the modern themes with which Büchner struggles, such as the authority of medicine, the issues of a class-based societal structure and gender relations, among others, many of which predate important thinkers and philosophers who expressed ideas along the same lines.
For instance, there are scenes in Woyzeck that deal overtly with Marxist theory, although Büchner’s death in 1837 predates Marx’s The Communist Manifesto by 11 years. Of course, what came to be identified as Marxist ideas were at the time brewing in European thought, but, nevertheless, Woyzeck stands out as somewhat of a marvel: a meditation on Marxist themes before Marx had articulated those themes himself.
The play itself—constructed out of a series of short scenes Büchner left behind after his death—consists of equal parts chaos and concision. Many scenes tend to the absurd, but all that instability is reined in by Büchner’s attention to detail.
Thinking on the brilliance of those scenes, I came away from the play with the sense that many of them could capably stand alone. A number of scenes leap to mind immediately: the passionate scene between Marie (Shayna Schmidt ’12) and her new love interest the Drum Major (Jonathan Higginbotham ’12), the shaving scene between Woyzeck (Kadahj Bennett ’12) and the Captain (John Whitney ’12) and the series of scenes between Woyzeck and his fellow soldier Andres (Nicolas Keller Sarmiento ’13).
The success of these scenes is, of course, only partly due to Büchner’s writing; much credit has to go to the cast.
Every major character in the play was excellently handled; it goes without saying that Bennett was tremendous in the title role. An almost schizophrenic character—angry and jealous one moment, subservient and reflective the next—Bennett follows the twists and turns in Woyzeck’s mental state with startling acuity, effectively documenting a descent into madness. Schmidt’s turn as Marie is equally impressive, providing an extraordinarily sympathetic portrayal of a woman trapped by the expectations of a patriarchal society.
Three other cast members with central roles in the story—the Mike Bickal ’12 as the Doctor, Whitney as the Captain, and Higginbotham as the Drum Major—also supply terrific performances, especially Bickal, whose nuanced swagger holds sway over other characters whenever he is on stage.
While the acting was noteworthy, the most fascinating feature of the production was, without a doubt, the staging and set design. Put together by the director, Professor of Theatre Carole Bellini-Sharp, and the set designer, Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Andrew Holland, the set is minimal, yet highly provocative.
The immediate shocker, as anyone who has seen the production already knows, is the stage flip orchestrated by Holland, such that the location of the stage, normally at the east end of Minor Theatre, is switched around to take the place of the normal seating area. Thus, entering the theatre is an awkward experience; many theatergoers, myself included, attempted to walk straight out onto the stage, clearly having the normal seating arrangement in mind. The stage flip asks the audience to undergo a process of spatial reorientation before the play even begins, pushing the audience to think carefully about the choices made about the set.
But the conceptual play with the audience doesn’t end there. The stage floor features two circular pits several feet in diameter, one filled with sand and the other with water, surrounded by green carpet. Surrounding the stage is a chain-link fence with several gates and a section at the back of the stage that recalls the set-up of a dugout fence on a Little League baseball field.
That connotation of “field,” not so much a literal sports field as an area of play, is evoked throughout the production. Bickal’s Doctor, although carrying a cane and sporting a limp, dexterously scrambles down the chain-link fence from the balcony area of the set. Bennett’s Woyzeck almost never stops running. The set is almost a playground of manic energy and movement.
Upon understanding the stage as a kind of field of play, the entirety of Minor Theatre is transformed into a larger, more expansive area of play—reflecting back to the stage flip and its effect on both the audience and the performers. That transformation highlights the irony of Woyzeck; while Woyzeck is trapped within a strict social hierarchy, his story itself escapes that hierarchy and is granted the freedom of the theater, opening up an opportunity to escape through art.
But, as much as I’ve made of critically interacting with the text and the set design of the play, the production is worth seeing solely for its strong performances. It would be hard to ask for a better Woyzeck than Bennett. The production will run its final shows Thursday, Nov. 10 through Saturday, Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. as well as a matinee show at 2 p.m. on Nov. 12. Tickets for students and seniors are $3 and $5 for the general public at the door.