From Laclos to Muller to Wilson
Just one month after Robert Wilson presented «Rumi: In the Blink of an Eye» at the Pallas Theater, the Greek public has yet another opportunity to immerse itself in the famed stage director’s magical universe. Wilson is currently staging Heiner Muller’s «Quartett» at the Olympia Theater with final performances – held within the context of the Athens Festival’s «From the Page to the Stage» series – taking place tomorrow and Sunday. Having condensed Pierre Cholderos de Laclos’s epistolary novel «Les Liaisons Dangereuses» into just 12 pages of published text, Muller has created a chapter of dialogue on the battle between the sexes and the shattered bourgeoisie conscience. The playwright’s language spares no one in its sarcasm and harshness, while the constant altercations between the characters and the sexes pose a challenge to the actors. The German playwright has kept little of the famed novel, written on the eve of the French Revolution. The correspondence between the Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil and Vicomte Sebastien de Valmont has been removed. Muller places the lovers on stage – toward the end of their tempestuous and scandal-ridden affair – while to the stage direction for the scene «Drawing Room Before the French Revolution,» Muller has added «Air Raid Shelter after World War III.» Using both historical contexts – Laclos’s in 1781 and Muller’s in 1981 – «Quartett» forms a parenthesis to the demise of the bourgeoisie. Merteuil is played by Isabelle Huppert and Valmont by Ariel Garcia Valdes. Olympia Theater, 59 Academias, tel 210.327.2000.
