V for Vendetta
Place: The old turbine station, JŠrla, Stockholm
Play: Landet där man gör som man vill
(The Land of Do-As-You-Please), after V for Vendetta
by Moore/Lloyd
Performers: The theatre group "Stockholms blodbad"
Intro: I became interested in this play after some glowing reviews in
the big morning papers. Granted, not all of them were 100% positive, but
the consensus was that it definitely was interesting. I'm not a theatre
fan, but now and then I go to a play anyhow, and this was a good candidate
for this year. So, together with some friends, away we went...
Setting: The old industrial building was perfect for this play. An old, dirty, spacious brick building, together with an indoor temperature somewhere around 5-10 °C definitely reminds me of England, and a postwar one at that.
Audience: Seemed satisfied, even the school class which some teacher had brought. And hey, they got some dirty words, drug hallucination, lots of murders and even a nude girl, so how could they complain? And, as I overheard in the pause, they even got some classes off for this!
Adaption: The most impressive thing of all in this performance. The group had set their goals high in this respect and, amazingly, overall they pulled it off. They tried to include everything, which made the play a bit overlong, clocking in at three hours, but their technical solution made this possible without straining the credibility. They had a big projector screen over the stage, upon which they showed film sequences tying scenes together, setting the surroundings (like Larkhill Resettlement Camp) etc. This made perfect timing a requirement, and this they got. In some of the scenes, such as when characters on-stage interacted with characters on-screen, or the screen showing the same scene as the live one but from a different angle, this was crucial. I might even go so far as saying that these film sequences were better than the live ones, but that might be me being more a movie person than a theatre one.
Acting: Sadly, this was where this performance was missing. The two main actors, portraying V and Evey, were the weakest ones in the ensemble, with V trying to hard to make every sentence filled with meaning, and Evey a mostly forgettable personality. V was especially unfortunate since he otherwise was good, with his body language and costumes. Otherwise, competent acting with the best performance being the one made by Mr Finch.
Summary: After the end, when we crawled out from our seats and blankets (generous amounts of these were available), I must say I was satisfied with the play. Not everything had been perfect, but it was refreshing seeing such an ambitious project succeeding, with the best parts being the ambition, adaption and a really good material to build upon.
Facts
- Info about the theatre group can be found at http://www.blodbad.nu
- First theatre visit for me since Personkrets 3:11 by Lars Norén couple of years ago (urgh