Matti Linnavuori[1]
Performance Reviews contains two kinds of articles. First, critics introduce performances seen in their home countries. These may be guest performances or domestic ones. Secondly, critics report from their visits to international festivals.
The section is proud to introduce contributors new to Critical Stages, and equally proud of its loyal correspondents. This means both new ways of looking at theatre and continuity, which together serve as points of comparison.
The articles are as follows, in alphabetical order according to the author. The list begins at home.
Daria Dimiu writes on László Bocsárdi’s Romanian production of Caligula. Christine Matvienko witnesses the Festival for Young Playwrights in Moscow. Tomasz Milkowski saw Eugenio Barba’s The Chronic Life when the Odin Theatre production visited Poland. Kamelia Nikolova shares Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale in Theatre Sfumato, Sofia, Bulgaria. But theatre cannot be confined inside one country only, as Güzin Yamaner notes in her review on Baris Eren’sA Cold Night in Berlin, which features characters of Turkish origin in Germany.
Paris reaches everywhere, to Moscow as well as to California. Paris is the centre point of two articles. Canadian critic Alvina Ruprecht reviews a Parisian production by the Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga, about the high-tension relationship between the Soviet dictator Stalin and the author Mikhail Bulgakov. Lissa Tyler Renaud celebrates an American recreation of Gertrude Stein’s 1934 opera libretto Four Saints.
In international festivals, Yun-Cheol Kim flew to Edinburgh to see Asian performances. Matti Linnavuori gets acquainted with post-socialist aesthetics in Poland. Brent Meersman saw a German production on Burkina Faso in Finland. Ludmila Patlanjoglu takes a look back at the European Theatre Prize ceremonies held in St Petersburg.
As for dance, Patrice Pavis reviews Nam Jeungho’s Korean Self-Portrait. Irène Sadowska-Guillon saw Pina Bausch choreographies for Tanztheater Wuppertal both live and on video.
[1] Matti Linnavuori (born 1955) edits the Performance Reviews Section for Critical Stages. He is a free lance theatre critic for Finnish newspaper Satakunnan Kansa. He has also written and directed radio plays for YLE Finnish Broadcasting Company.
