Synopsis Set in Prussia the play is concerned with questions of loyalty, obedience, patriotism and love. The night before he leads his troops into battle, the Prince of Homburg strips off his uniform and goes sleepwalking. Moonstruck, his mind races with a young man's fantasies - love, ambition and victory. But when morning comes, a single reckless act of disobedience sets in motion a chain of events that leads inexorably to the one thing he never dreamt would happen; his own death.
Hot on the heels of the National’s Danton's Death comes The Prince of Homburg at the Donmar Warehouse, another historical epic charting a European revolutionary’s fall from grace.
The play, written by Heinrich von Kleist in 1809, takes place in 17th century Prussia rather than 18th century France and follows the idealistic Prince of Homburg as he is sentenced to death for disobeying military orders, despite returning victorious from the battlefields of Fehrbellin.
Von Kleist’s original verse is given a modern lick of prose paint by writer Dennis Kelly and director Jonathan Munby. The title role is tackled by Charlie Cox, whose Prince is counterpointed by Ian McDiarmid’s villainous Elector of Brandenburg. The production opened at the Donmar Warehouse on 22 July 2010 and will run until 4 September.
Did this Prince divide or conquer the critics?
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (three stars) – “Jonathan Munby’s revival… certainly looks like a Donmar production: torches, flagstones, big dark wall, great lighting (by Neil Austin), doomy music… Ian McDiarmid plays the Elector of Brandenburg as a viperish intellectual sadist... This slightly unbalances the central guessing game of who’s abiding by the rules of honour on the subject of the prince’s salvation or execution. And there seems to be an odd re-writing of the last act … Charlie Cox is a splendid, straightforward Romantic prince… even though his articulation tends to be slovenly. And there’s a great array of Prussian military types led by David Burke’s stern commanding officer, William Hoyland’s humanely dedicated infantry colonel, bloodied but unbowed, and Julian Wadham’s slyly inflected, very funny, field marshall. The prince has his Horatio, too, in the devoted figure of Harry Hadden-Paton’s royal count, and there are delicate, pointed contributions from Siobhan Redmond as the Electress and Sonya Cassidy as Natalia... But without any real sense of Kleist’s poetry, and a lot of idiomatic low-grade speech, you don’t feel close to the heart of this strange, slippery European milestone.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (three stars) – “Heinrich von Kleist's great German play… has been given a new ending by Dennis Kelly which perverts the play's meaning and undermines an otherwise fascinating evening… To the Nazis, (the play) was clearly a vindication of obedience to a strict military code; and both Kelly's version, with its references to the "Fatherland", and Jonathan Munby's production, with its orgy of Prussian heel-clicking, treat the play as if it were guilty by association with national socialism. But Kleist's play is infinitely more subtle and morally ambiguous than that… The tantalising thing is that when Munby's production sticks close to the original, it is very good. Angela Davies's design, Neil Austin's lighting and Dominic Haslam's music lend the opening sequence a phantasmagoric quality. Charlie Cox also catches perfectly the uncertainty of the prince himself torn between cowardice and heroism… But the dilemma of this production is expressed by Ian McDiarmid's oddly confusing performance as the Elector. On one level, McDiarmid gives us a neat display of manipulative irony and handles the potential military insurrection with an amused guile. But gradually McDiarmid turns into a barking autocrat shrieking ‘I want rules and order.’ And, while it would be unfair to reveal the new ending, I can only say that it is not what Kleist wrote or intended.”
Libby Purves in The Times (three stars) – “The Prince of Homburg is a romantic soldier, prone to mooning over Princess Natalia and fabulous lines like ‘Night out here is like a Persian bride, it wraps its hair around you like perfume…” Beautiful Charlie Cox resolves the psychological atavism of this transition by playing it like a high-spirited, good-hearted sixth former: it works. Natalia is an honest performance by Sonya Cassidy, and brother-officers click and bark with convincing brittleness and occasional Germanic soupiness… But the real star is Ian McDiarmid as the Elector: a bleak, arid slave to principle; a tick-box tyrant… Curiously, the bleaker and odder and more Prussian the outlook gets in Act II, the more absurdities draw huffs of hilarity from a tense audience… Expect no happy ending. But any Nazi seeking to recruit this play to the cause wouldn’t end it quite as Kleist, Kelly and Munby do. The last ‘Heils!’ ring as hollow as the thunk of any guillotine.”
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail – “Here is a play about the clash between military heroism and martial law. Should it go for laughs? Last night's audience of Donmar friends and supporters certainly thought so… Every time these men clicked their heels and slammed their chests in salute, young women in the stalls giggled. You'd have thought they were watching an episode of TV's Blackadder…The audience's reaction was the result of Jonathan Munby's relentlessly modern direction. He has his actors gurn and gawp and play things for humour in places where far greater power could come from sticking to the rigidity of the military codes of the 19th-century Prussia setting. Charlie Cox's prince is convincingly headstrong but there is a disastrous scene when he tells a friend that he has been sentenced to death… Mr McDiarmid, despite his amazingly deep voice, is miscast. He hams and camps and rolls his eyes…There should be more to admire in this show… In this director's insufficiently serious grasp, it underwhelms.”
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (two stars) – “Dennis Kelly’s rendition suggests the modernity of Kleist’s writing, particularly in its scrutiny of anxieties and embarrassments. However, the highly-strung wit of Kleist’s verse is lost in a welter of rhetoric, and Kelly has unnecessarily amended Kleist’s ending. Charlie Cox effectively evokes the prince’s adolescent brand of disquiet… Better when passionate than when contemplative, he too often seems merely earnest. More memorable, though not happily so, is Ian McDiarmid as the Elector, who veers between a Blackadder-ish smoulder and the strangled rage of a cartoon fascist. He has moments of wintry gravity, yet his performance is weirdly mannered. There is some deft work from Harry Hadden-Paton and David Burke. But Jonathan Munby’s production is either too static or bombastic, and it accentuates without much subtlety the play’s relevance to Hitler’s Germany… True, there are flickers of familiar Donmar dazzle, mainly in the stronger second half, and Angela Davies’s design is ingenious. But The Prince of Homburg is a misfire from this so often excellent theatre.”
Hold on to your hats: Homburg’s back in town. Last seen at the RSC eight years ago, he’s the dreaming Prussian prince - who disobeys orders, wins the great 17th-century battle of Fehrbellin against the Swedes, and is sentenced to death nonetheless - as commemorated in Henrich von Kleist’s last play before he committed suicide in 1811 aged just 34.
Jonathan Munby’s revival, in a new prose version by Dennis Kelly (from a literal translation by Heike Roemer; the original is in verse), certainly looks like a Donmar production: torches, flagstones, big dark wall, great lighting (by Neil Austin), doomy music – in fact it looks rather like the other Donmar production currently playing at the National, Danton’s Death.
And there’s the same youthful impatience with military authority and political despotism. Ian McDiarmid plays the Elector of Brandenburg as a viperish intellectual sadist, with a voice now like a melodious crow, now like a buzz-saw, teetering on madness. This slightly unbalances the central guessing game of who’s abiding by the rules of honour on the subject of the prince’s salvation or execution.
And there seems to be an odd re-writing of the last act, which is far more mysterious in Neil Bartlett’s RSC version. Still, the play continuously dances between dream and reality and exerts a fascinating grip as the characters shift blame and take initiatives that prove disastrous.
Charlie Cox is a splendid, straightforward Romantic prince, not the existentialist hero you might have expected, horribly impulsive, even though his articulation tends to be slovenly. And there’s a great array of Prussian military types led by David Burke’s stern commanding officer, William Hoyland’s humanely dedicated infantry colonel, bloodied but unbowed, and Julian Wadham’s slyly inflected, very funny, field marshall.
The prince has his Horatio, too, in the devoted figure of Harry Hadden-Paton’s royal count, and there are delicate, pointed contributions from Siobhan Redmond as the Electress and Sonya Cassidy as Natalia, the object of the prince’s hectic desire in a moonlit garden.
Dreams of glory on the eve of battle are achieved in reality, then dashed. Imprisonment is so real it must be a dream, too. These eddies in the play are well caught, as befits a director whose first Donmar production was Calderon’s Life is a Dream, and the chamber theatre echoes with scenes of military and ecclesiastical display. But without any real sense of Kleist’s poetry, and a lot of idiomatic low-grade speech, you don’t feel close to the heart of this strange, slippery European milestone.
Very occasionally the Donmar gets things completely wrong and unfortunately The Prince of Homburg is a prime example. The play is unfamiliar so it's impossible to say if it's because of von Kleist's confused scenario or Dennis Kelly's clumsy adaptation. The motivations of the two leading protagonists are constantly shifting in contrary directions and are not helped by performances from Ian McDiarmid and Charlie Cox which do nothing to suggest that either would inspite blind loyalty or a potential mutiny. Worst of all, Kelly has apparently completely changed the ending. This might make slightly more dramatic sense, particularly given the heavy-handed comparisons with Hitler's Reich, but it is not the play von Kleist wrote. It's like Othello having a moment of clarity and turning in Iago instead of Desdemona - interesting but not Shakespeare. Perhaps Michael Grandage has been distracted by his directing duties at the National because this has been a mixed year for the Donmar so far, a victim of almost impossibly high expectations. - David Baxter
28 Aug 10
Less than half the c.50 plays I’ve seen in London this year have been new (I can’t wait for Edinburgh to restore the balance). Of the revivals many were definitely worth reviving – from Shakespeare (the Almeida’s Measure for Measure and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Rose in Kingston) through Miller (The Open Air’s Crucible and All My Sons in the West End) to The Beauty Queen of Leenane just last Saturday at the Young Vic…..but I would question whether both the Buckner at the NT on Friday and this last night at the Donmar deserve it.
This early 19th century German play centres on a dreamy young prince who becomes a war hero but because he doesn’t strictly follow his orders finds himself in deep trouble. By the interval, though it had held my attention, I was thinking ‘so?’. The second half was much better as the debate about his reasons and the rights and wrongs unfolds. It’ OK, but just OK, and not in my view good enough to see it replace better revivals or new work from the London stage. Simply but elegantly staged and well acted, it’s hard to fault the production but hard to justify all the effort. - Gareth James
Re-opened in 1992. Seats 254. 1999 - Ambassador Theatre Group takes over from the Associated Capital Theatres as the landlord of the Donmar Warehouse. 2002 - Michael Grandage succeeds Sam Mendes as Artistic Director of the Donmar. Nick Frankfort succeeds Caro Newling as Executive Producer.
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