In The Penal Colony, Music Theatre Wales, Linbury Studio Theatre | reviews, news & interviews
In The Penal Colony, Music Theatre Wales, Linbury Studio Theatre
In The Penal Colony, Music Theatre Wales, Linbury Studio Theatre
Philip Glass's chamber opera makes for painful viewing
Thursday, 16 September 2010
The Officer (Omar Ebrahim) contemplates his beloved machineClive Barda
The pairing of Philip Glass and Franz Kafka is a natural one. A shared fascination with obsession, with developing a simple premise to its most densely worked-out, most logical conclusion is evident in both, and it is only perhaps surprising that it took until 2000 for Glass to produce In The Penal Colony. Exploiting the minimal surroundings of the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre to maximal effect, this UK premiere production forgoes inference and suggestion in favour of all-out confrontation, etching its message brutally into the audience.
The pairing of Philip Glass and Franz Kafka is a natural one. A shared fascination with obsession, with developing a simple premise to its most densely worked-out, most logical conclusion is evident in both, and it is only perhaps surprising that it took until 2000 for Glass to produce In The Penal Colony. Exploiting the minimal surroundings of the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre to maximal effect, this UK premiere production forgoes inference and suggestion in favour of all-out confrontation, etching its message brutally into the audience.
A performance whose aggressive intimacy is almost unwatchably painful
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