✭✭✭✭✩

by Thomas Bernhard, directed by Adam Seelig

One Little Goat, Alchemy Theatre, Toronto

November 17-December 3, 2006

"Being at Home with Wittgenstein"

Toronto may be the third largest centre for theatre in the English-speaking world after London and New York, but that doesn’t mean that we keep up on the most important developments in theatre elsewhere.  Therefore, it’s a surprise that a small theatre company in Toronto, One Little Goat, should be presenting the English-language premiere of a play by Austrian playwright and novelist Thomas Bernhard (1931-89), many of whose plays have become standard repertory in Central Europe.

The title of “Ritter, Dene, Voss” gives no clue to its subject matter.  The title honours the three famous actors who first created the roles in Salzburg in 1986--Ilse Ritter, Kirsten Dene and Gert Voss.  Such a titles also highlights a theme in Bernhard that while a play may be “about” a certain subject, it is also always about acting. 

In the play we are introduced to the two Worringer sisters, both actresses, who, since they have no character names have to be referred to by the original actors’ names.  The older sister, Dene, and the younger, Ritter, are preparing themselves for their first meal with their philosopher brother Ludwig (Voss), whom Dene has just retrieved from the insane asylum where he spends most of his time.  Dene has convinced herself that Ludwig will stay with them this time because, in an effort to sooth his fragile mind, she has tried to make their house and the meal exactly like they used to be before he had to be institutionalized.  Ritter, however, is skeptical of Ritter’s motives, thinks her brother is better off in the asylum and has nothing to do with Dene’s fussing.  Gradually, we realize that both sisters love Ludwig in ways that go beyond sororal affection.  Dene, who transcribes all of Ludwig’s works for publication, believes Ludwig cannot live without her.  Ludwig, however, hates Dene for the smothering role she plays and is attracted to Ritter who returns his incestuous affection.  The process Bernhard takes us through in the action is the realization that Ludwig is demonstrably better off in the asylum where he can work uninterrupted and with greater freedom than his sisters’ passions allow him at home.  As is usual in Bernhard, the depiction of the claustrophobia of the Worringer household is also a critique of suffocation intellectual climate of Austrian society.

Bernhard grants Ludwig a large number of biographical details from the life of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)--the wealthy family background, the two sisters, his giving his money away, the titles of this works, the places where he wrote them, etc.  The real Wittgenstein, however, was never in and out of asylums like Bernhard’s Ludwig nor was involved with his sisters, being drawn rather to other men.  Given that the real Wittgenstein’s work concerned both logic and the relation of language to truth, Bernhard’s play becomes a kind of postmodern absurdist simulacrum.  Just as the painter René Magritte created a famous painting called “La trahison des images” (1929) of a smoking pipe above the statement “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”, Bernhard has created a play with a plot that says “Ceci n’est pas Wittgenstein” that could be called “La trahison du langage”.

Indeed, the actors who play both Dene and Ludwig interrupt the action to speak to the audience as “themselves” (whatever that may be), making us ask, as does the play in numerous ways, what makes something fictional or real and since language creates both, how can we use it to discern the difference?

To make this play work best the actors need to adopt the Brechtian acting style of “demonstrating” a character rather than “becoming” a character as most naturalistic theatre demands.  Of the three actors, Maev Beaty as Dene is best at this, giving her character just the right amount of stylization.  She also had an admirable sense of comic timing.  Shannon Perreault is very funny as Ritter, constantly poking holes in Dene’s pious façade, but she doesn’t have quite the iron grip on her mode of presentation that Beaty does.  Greg Thomas is excellent at highlighting Ludwig’s bizarreness, seeming calm and almost trancelike one moment, the next aggressive and rude.  He makes the now-famous cream puff-eating scene just as comic and disgusting as it should be.  What’s missing is a greater ambiguity concerning whether Ludwig’s actions are intentional or part of his illness.

The translation by Kenneth Northcott and Peter Jansen is fluent and idiomatic.  Jackie Chau’s simple set of coloured brocade panels and her period costumes are simple but effective.  Dominating the set are impressive paintings by Michele Lazar.  The point of Ben Chaisson’s video of a constantly burning cigarette behind one of Lazar’s paintings was hard to decipher.  Kate McKay’s lighting is more expressionistic than naturalistic as befits a play about states of mind.  As director Adam Seelig shows a sure hand in guiding the cast through Bernhard’s unpunctuated text and drawing out its wry comedy and abrupt changes of mood.  One question is whether he might have made greater use of pauses as one would in Beckett or Pinter to create a greater sense of tension among the characters.

Anyone who reads the playlists for the major theatres in Europe knows that there are a lot more plays out there that the larger theatre companies in Canada seem unwilling to touch.  Therefore, we must be thankful to companies like One Little Goat for opening our minds to such challenging and unusual works as “Ritter, Dene, Voss”.  An insightful production like this augurs well for the future. 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Shannon Perreault, Greg Thomas and Maev Beatty. ©Lauren Stryer.