The
highlight in the theatre scene in Rio de Janeiro this month is the absurd play “Blood
on a Cat’s Neck” written by Rainer Fassbinder. This production, directed by
English director David Herman at the Espaço Yan Michalski is a memorable
projection of the complex German play. Mr. Herman, who has been working in
Brazil since the 1980’s has been collaborating with local artists for two
decades bringing modern classic plays to the brazilian theatre scene. This
time, the director has brought Phoebe Zeitgeist (starred by the extraordinary actress
Carina Haller) who has been sent to Earth from a distant planet to research the
human race. There are eight other characters in the play, all symbolizing a
stereotype of the characters in Fassbinder’s life at the time he wrote the
play, in 1970. The characters are: a supermodel, a lover, a widow, a policeman,
a soldier, a butcher, a professor and the young lady.
The
first mesmerizing aspect of this production happens in the opening scene, as Phoebe
(Carina Haller) wonders around planet Earth, where a gigantic piece of real raw
meat hangs from the ceiling in the butcher station while a TV plays a black and
white video of extreme occurrences from the characters’ life. The video on
stage is a tribute to the playwright, Fassbinder, who was also a well-known
filmmaker in his time. This starting combination of a dead animal hanging from
the celling, a video of people doing obscene human activities and Phoebe’s
exploration (a sequence of well choreographed movements as she interprets the
scene) is extremely disturbing and intriguing. This is not your average theater
play. This is a heated production, where rape, drugs, madness, destructive
innocence, lies and passionate love make up a story that forces the audience to
take a good look at themselves.
The
play has three acts and the scenes are not connected to each other, except for Phoebe
who witnesses them all, learning how to behave, think and talk like a human.
The character arc portrayed by Carina Haller is impeccable. It is through her
eyes that the audience is able to make sense of the absurd play, making her
responsibility gigantic in this role. At first, she is a foreign creature who
does not recognize anything she sees, but then she starts copying the
physicality of the characters and repeating what they say, without any judgment
of course, because as a being from another planet, she is not biased. Carina Haller’s ingenuity and grace is
captivating throughout. Her imagination in this part is something every actor
should witness. There are specific themes in each one of the scenes: fighting,
falling in love, theft, cheating, money, friendship, sex, homosexuality,
prostitution, marriage and etc. In each one, a different facet of human beings can
be seen: the passionate side, the desperate side, and the infuriated side and
so on. The humanity in the play is portrayed in a raw, take it or leave it kind
of way, but isn’t that how we truly are in extreme situations?
By
the end of the second act, there is a party where all the different characters
interact with one another for the first time, including Phoebe. She starts to
talk with the characters, quoting lines she learned from previous scenes, and
completely out of context. This creates chaos and misunderstanding in the party
and as the characters ostracize Phoebe, she becomes frightened and endangered.
Once again, Carina Haller’s range captivates, as she turns from playful to
terrified like a caged animal. In order to protect herself, Phoebe bites the
characters on the neck thus killing them and finding herself completely alone
in Earth, ready to begin from scratch. Whether she will
keep the laughter and bliss from the young lady experiencing falling in love
for the first time, or the destructive lover’s twisted addiction to sex and drugs
is left up in the air. The point is, everyone in the audience is Phoebe, having
to make decisions on how to live their lives.
Special
recognition goes to Carina Haller for her talented interpretation of Phoebe,
for Carolina Ferman as the Young Lady who falls in love with an older man and
Eduardo Muniz as the Butcher who struggles with a love hate relationship with
his aggressive father.
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