'Ophelia' a name anchored in the collective memory, a character from Shakespeare's play 'The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'. However, a curse hangs over her love. She is rejected by him. Heartbreak becomes fatal to her. She speaks only in fragments of love songs and ultimately drowns. As a starting point, theater maker Inne Goris found Ophelia an interesting figure.
Concept
She searched for 12 girls between the ages of 8 and 22 for the distinctive film installation. They don't yet know much about love. But they don't want to go mad from heartbreak and end up in a pond full of flowers like Ophelia. There are alternatives. Girls in transition from child to woman are not only beautiful but also interesting. In the current landscape, our adolescents are free-spirited. The following question resonated: "What is love?" The chemistry that makes you choose one being out of all others that stands out to you and want to spend your life with them. A first love is of course a momentous event. Being in love creates intense and turbulent energy. Experiencing sparks of bliss. Holding hands embracing each other and flying off to heaven. One of the girls describes it vividly: "Embracing each other is wonderful, you feel his warmth on your body." But don't adolescents idealize and romanticize love too much?
Ultimately there is not one Ophelia but 12. They share their experiences. Love staged with the codes and expectations of 2021. Being in love with a boy or a girl, or both. It's all possible. What makes artistic work so fantastic is gathering material, extracting a mise-en-scène from it and having your performers interpret those ideas from their world of experience. In her direction, Inne Goris bridges voice, music and image. A perfect match. The three pillars of this production provide plenty of expressiveness and nuances in a succession of short scenes. A journey full of words, skillful imagery, rhythm and melodies.
Mise-en-scène
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© Koen Broos[/caption]
The production is performed in arena form. The audience takes their place in a circle around a tall rectangular flat construction, a monolith block onto which images are projected. Strong images emerged from improvisation. Because the projection screen is positioned horizontally rather than vertically, effects are created with surprising image compositions ranging from playful to dark.
A small voice echoes timidly in the darkness. Another follows from left, right, in stereo mode. In the dark you can listen with focus. Text and song stimulate the senses with ethereal, melodious sounds. The girls share tender experiences, but also dream and philosophize freely. They whisper, speak out their story, gibber, giggle, laugh out loud. The first projected images show girls in fairy tale-like clothing. No faces, they remain anonymous, the focus is on the hands, which move gracefully. With a slight touch the camera focuses on another girl, and so on. Until the last girl whose one hand seems overgrown with bundles of twigs. The imagery further shows familiar situations, plucking the petals of a flower: he loves me, he loves me not, he comes, he doesn't come. Or the camera focuses on the back of a girl. She turns her gaze inward, introspection runs deep, vulnerable. Another turns away from love in revolt: "I'll never marry!" There is a strong connotation with earth: creeping into it as into a cocoon. The dives into loneliness and tristesse are fortunately never oppressive. The utmost care has been taken with the filmic images and editing, Fingerspitzengefühl.
During the performance you watch the imagery and listen to the voices in the dark. At the end the lights come on. The 12 Ophelias, who had taken their places among the audience, stand up and drape a song around the whole.
Composer Thomas Smetryns provided an ethereal, atmospheric soundscape with silky-smooth chords and now and then a swelling tapestry of sound.
'Ophelia' a fine production: euphoric, then dark and poetic again.
INFO
- WHAT: Ophelia
- WHEN: premiere Wednesday 29 September
- WHERE: HetPALEIS, Antwerpen
- WHO:
- Concept & direction: Inne Goris
- Composition: Thomas Smetryns
- Performance: SPECTRA Ensemble [Pieter Jansen, violin; Bram Bossier, viola; Francis Mourey, cello and Frank Van Eycken, percussion]
- Libretto: Dounia Mahammed
- Camera and photography: Koen Broos
- Editing: Linde Raedschelders
- Girls: Helin Capa, Joanna Decaluwé, Olivia Engels, Lena Kontech, Annellen Lambrecht, Marie Moonen, Ivana Noa, Chahd Snoussi, Renee Vaerewijck, Billie Van Overtvelt, Paulien Van Walle and Marthe Verhovert
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