A DAY OF STRONG EMOTIONS

On the second day of the Interferences International Theatre Festival two emotionally striking experiences were lived by the spectators, through the unique art of the German choreographer Pina Bausch and the mysterious dark comedy “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare performed by the Israeli Habima National Theatre.   

After a stimulating dialog with the creators of the performance “An Enemy of The People” - during which the themes of ecology and capitalism were discussed with a direct reference to Roșia Montana - the audience was invited to take part in a completely different discussion. In fact, it was an introduction to the series of four projections “Hommage à Pina Bausch” by her assistant Robert Sturm, now artistic director of the Dance Theatre “Tanztheater Pina Bausch”, since the death of the icon of modern and contemporary dance in 2009. 

In a cosy and elegant little room inside the TIFF house café, Robert Sturm shared his memories and awareness of “Pina”. He was talking about the evolution of Pina Bausch’s work in different stages of her life, mentioning not only the performances that will be projected in the coming days but also other related and outstanding performances, such as “The second Spring” (1975), where an old couple is remembering their youth, “Wind von West” (1975), “Le Sacre du Printemps” (1978), “Viktor” (1986), and “Palermo Palermo” (1989). 

In one hand he presented the evolution, in the other hand the “revolution” that she intentionally created through her work. For instance, Robert Sturm highlighted the fact that Pina Bausch brought the singers to the stage, to perform simultaneously with the dancers, in this way trying to create a completely different effect on the perception of the piece. 
 

What is the Tanztheater through which she revolutionized the classic and modern idea of ballet? It is a “complete theatre” which brings emotions to the stage, a kind of fusion between theatre and dance. In her choreographies, the dance and the movement but also the voices and gestures of the dancers become the real protagonists of her methodology. Indeed, Robert Sturm outlined that “there is no Bausch technique; it is more about method of working”. On her creation process, called Blaubart, she often started with questions asked to her dancers-performers. These freely answered questions often had a great impact on the company that arise personal emotions, memories, suggestion that were used as a base to the improvisation which lately became part of the performance. All this constituted a precious theatrical raw material afterwards reorganized by Pina Bausch on the stage by assembling the fragments like in a collage where every moment keeps the memory of the previous creative moment. 
 

After Robert Sturm’s introduction, we watched the first projection, “Café Müller”, the most famous and autobiographical piece by Pina Bausch, the only one in which she decided to dance. The action develops in an imaginary dark café where a profusion of empty chairs and tables are key parts of the stage and only six characters dance the astonishingly beautiful “Dido and Aeneas” and  “The Fairy Queen” by Henry Purcell. As Pina Bausch said, this piece is a “lament of love”, a metaphor of loneliness and of the impossibility to reach an authentic contact with the other.

After this emotionally strong experience, in the afternoon the spectators could join the representation of another giant, William Shakespeare and his “Merchant of Venice”, an extraordinarily complex work which cannot easily be defined. It is not a light comedy and not a real tragedy, it is something in between which plays with the themes of game, love, death, racism and antiracism, and also marginalization. 
 

We are in Venice, in the sixteenth century. Bassanio, young Venetian gentleman, would like to win the hand of Portia, a beautiful wealthy heiress from Belmont. In order to court her worthily, he asks the merchant Antonio, his best friend, a loan of 3.000 ducats. With no ready funds and all his ships at sea, Antonio seeks out a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, who hates the merchant for his Christian contempt of usury. Shylock proposes a 'merry bond' by which, if the money is not repaid within three months, he may take a pound of Antonio's flesh; and Antonio agrees. When Shylock finds out that Antonio’s ships have sunk in the sea, he seizes the chance to have his revenge and announces he wants the pound of flesh owed to him by law. Portia arrives in Venice disguised as a man, and pretending to be a lawyer, finds a loophole in the contract, rescuing Antonio and making Shylock sentenced to hand his entire fortune to Lorenzo, the Christian man her daughter had eloped with; even worse, Shylock is forced to convert to Christian religion. 

None of the characters is completely positive within the plot. Not even Shylock, played amazingly by Jacob Cohen.  Shylock, whose cruelty and attachment to money are so evident, is also the victim of a complete and constant verbal and physical violence perpetrated by a system where intolerance highly accepted.
 

His words against anti-Semitism are incredibly true and moving: “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”

Is “The Merchant of Venice” a real comedy? Or, according to the fourth act, a drama?

Francesca Moschitta