The Radu Stanca National Theatre of Sibiu, Romania, had a big hit at the 2009 Edinburgh International Festival with its production of Faust. Now the state-subsidized company has returned to the Edinburgh International Festival with a new production, Gulliver’s Travels – After Jonathan Swift.
Performed in Romanian with English supertitles -- hardly necessary; most of the action is physical and non-verbal--Gulliver’s Travels concentrates on only one section of Swift's novel. As director Silviu Purcarete commented, "My performance is an independent production inspired by the book, not a dramatization of the text. Most of all, it's about the atmosphere of the last -- and most pessimistic -- part. The actors created the substance of the show in rehearsals during a long process of improvisation. This way there is room for surprises and for what comes out in the creative process."
In the show's opening scene, the beleaguered Gulliver awakens in a straw-covered, plastic-sheathed field filled with prancing actors pretending to be horses. A real horse soon makes an entrance; the effect on Gulliver (and us) is both startling and magical.
Purcarete's vision of Gulliver begins to darken as its story unfolds: there is a scene in Brobdingnag in which a baby is cooked and eaten (this was obviously inspired by Swift's mordant essay, "A Modest Proposal"); next come a series of other scenes depicting, in mountingly horrific fashion, man's inhumanity to man.
Purcarete employs a dazzling array of theatrical devices to enhance his nightmare-like production: taped music (plus a live organist); explosive sound; eery lighting and costumes.
His 17-person cast excels from start to finish, working with clock-like, choreographed precision to bring this Mittel-European Gulliver to chilling but remarkable life.
