!VAR HAGENDOORN

Johan Simons: Kasimir und Karoline

Johan Simons's adaptation of Ödön von Horváth's Kasimir & Karoline is so bad if I didn't already have tickets for some performances during the Holland Festival it would have cured me of my desire to go to the theatre for months to come.

Three days before the show I received a phone call from the theatre that the performance on Saturday had been cancelled, allegedly for "technical reasons". I was offered my money back or a ticket for the show on Friday or Thursday. I expected the theatre to be full because of the cancellation of one show, but to my surprise it was more than half empty. So my guess is that they had sold so few tickets they cancelled one performance.

The German version of the same production also directed by Johan Simons had been selected for the annual Theatertreffen in Berlin, which is supposed to include the ten "most remarkable productions" of the year, so I had been looking forward to seeing it.

The stage design is by Bert Neumann who has collaborated with Simons on several productions. Neumann began has career as a set designer at the Volksbuhne in Berlin and has designed numerous sets for Frank Castorf and Rene Pollesch. Neuman has a distinct style, which is to say that most of his set designs are a variation on a single template. By now, whenever I see those same plastic chairs again I wonder whether his brother in law has a garden centre or something. No matter the piece or the director it all looks the same.

The set for Kasimir & Karoline consists of four levels, which in itself is interesting: the floor, the roof of a shack across the width of the stage and a three stage scaffolding tower. The actors run around on the stage and the roof and regularly climb the scaffolding. Perhaps this is one reason why the performance doesn't come to life. Everything happens at a distance. There is a distance between the actors and a distance between the actors and the audience.

There's a lot of screaming and shouting. It could be that I'm living inside a bubble, but this always seems like a theatrical convention to me: in real life people don't shout as much as they do in the theatre. The shouting is there to make it clear to the audience that the character is angry. But it is such a cliché.

Some weeks ago I wrote that on my way to see Die Ehe der Maria Braun I wondered why I actually went to see the show. This is what I asked myself all the time during Kasimir & Karoline. Why am I watching this? What are these people on stage trying to tell me? What's the point of it all? Simons was trying to make a point, but that was already obvious after 5 minutes or so. The story is not all that interesting either.

I left half way. I always feel bad about leaving in the middle of a performance. I feel bad for the actors and for the other people in the audience. But when I decide to leave I already feel so bad that leaving makes me feel worse so I hope people will empathize with me.

Johan Simons is currently one of Holland's and Europe's most celebrated directors. But like some other celebrated directors, Frank Castorf, Guy Cassiers, Luk Perceval and Ivo van Hove, he has been doing the same piece for many years now. Last December after yet another complete failure Frank Castorf at least admitted in an interview (or here) that he had lost it. (But then quit and hand the job to someone else).

I know what you might be thinking: don't go! And you're right, if that's what you're thinking. I stopped going to Castorf and Ivo van Hove several years ago. Two years ago I went to see another piece by Luk Perceval and it was just as bad as the last piece I'd seen. I have now added Johan Simons and Guy Cassiers to my beyond sell date. Perhaps I should add that Ten Oorlog/Schlachten! by Luk Perceval and Tom Lanoye is one of the best theatre performances I've seen. I loved Guy Cassiers' Proust cycle, I really liked Platform and Elementarteilchen by Johan Simons and Endstation Amerika, Forever Young and Erniedrigte und Beleidigte by Frank Castorf.

My problem is not so much with any of these directors, it's their job and they just produce pieces the way other people work with insurance companies and in hospitals. (Of course that IS the problem, because one would expect something more of an artist, but no doubt it says in their contract they have to produce at least one new production every season). The real problem is with the theatres and festivals that continue programming every new piece by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Johan Simons, Akram Khan and so on, because well, they are renowned directors and choreographers. If only more people would stop going or had the courage to just leave during a piece.

Related

My review of Johan Simons: Platform

My review of Johan Simons: Elementarteilchen