After the Rehearsal / Persona

based on the films of Ingmar Bergman

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 28 September 2017

Once again director Ivo van Hove has devised a theatrical event by adapting cinematic works - two in one evening in this case. Gijs Scholten van Aschat (Hendrik and the husband), Gaite Jansen (Anna and Alma) and Marieke Heebink (Rachel and Elisabeth) feature in both plays, with Lineke Rijxman as the doctor in Persona, and the production is designed by Jan Versweyveld, van Hove's usual collaborator. It is spoken in Dutch with English surtitles provided.

Obsession

based on the film by Luchino Visconti

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 20 April 2017

Ivo van Hove directs Jude Law as Gino, Halina Reijn as Hanna, and Gijs Scholten van Aschat as Joseph, with Chukwudi Iwuji as the Priest and the INspector, Robert de Hoog as Jhnny and Aysha Kala as Anita in this adaptation of Visconti's 1942 film Ossessione, in which a drifter takes temporary work in a car repair shop and begins an obsessive affair with the proprietor's wife.

The production bears a number of Ivo van Hove's hallmarks - an all-purpose set (designed and lit by Jan Versweyveld); slow pulsing musical notes to create an expectation of doom or threat; intense emotional situations revealed in silences or sudden bursts of activity or speech; a tendency to work against the grain of the piece in order to uncover its fundamental meanings.