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Alma Mahler: Female Ego Against
Male
You can go into exile with Franz Werfel, watch Oskar Kokoschka
attempting to rape Alma Mahler, accompany Gustav Mahler to
his grave, or admire Alma in her triple incarnation. And naturally,
you are at liberty to wander at will between these and numerous
other scenes which fill the Palazzo Zenobio with theatrical
life. What is certain is that you will always miss something,
in this piece of theatre which is spread over two floors of
the Palace and gardens, and which even includes a short boat
trip along the canals.
Alma is a turbulent and moving affair which demonstrates
how neither individuals nor epochs can ever be grasped in
their full complexity.
Following several successful years at the Sanatorium Purkersdorf
in Vienna, Alma, the hit play based on a script by Joshua
Sobol and produced for stage by Paulus Manker, has relocated
to Venice. On 22 August, the performance, which tells of the
effects of a society in decline at the turn of the twentieth
century, has its premiere at the Palazzo Zenobio.
The Venice version of the performance was presented at three
previews. The most significant change is the language. In
Venice, Alma is played in a mixture of English and Italian,
with a few moments in German. It sounds confusing, but it
is astonishingly well organized. If, for instance, we accompany
Franz Werfel, we are following the Italian strand; Helmut
Berger speaks predominantly English, etc. The second major
difference is the atmosphere. The Palazzo Zenobio is richly
decorated with stucco elements, paintings and mirrors, and
on top of that, it is now more or less packed with theatre
props. Here, we are truly in another world, far more removed
from the present than amid the stark architecture of the Sanatorium
Purkersdorf.
As for the performers, Alma's inner conflict is brought out
superbly in the three different Alma roles, representing the
young seductress (Lea Mornar), the earthy Alma (Nicole Ansari-Cox)
and the intellectual (Wiebke Frost). The long-suffering Franz
Werfel is rendered convincingly by Nikolaus Paryla, and the
fragile figure of Gustav Mahler, progressive and yet firmly
rooted in the nineteenth century, is perfectly embodied by
Helmut Berger.
As if on a high and yet ever returning to a considered and
calculating mode, Paulus Manker performs the figure of Oskar
Kokoschka. Xaver Hutter gives a sound rendering of Walter
Gropius, the jealous lover, conveying the architect's professional
dimension.
The fact that all participants in the Alma drama are boundless
egotists bothered about nothing other than their own concerns,
such as power, fame and their own feelings, reaches its climax
in the person of old Alma (Milena Vukotic).
The multilingual aspect has enriched Alma by a further dimension;
an international production in the best sense.
by Henriette Horny/Kurier, Tuesday 20 August 2002
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