Fiesta (The Sun Also Rises)

Synopsis

Fiesta is based on one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. American writer Jake, is one of 'the lost generation' post WWI living a bohemian lifestyle in Paris in the 1920s, with fellow expat, novelist Robert, until the arrival of the irresistible Lady Brett Ashley throws their lives into turmoil. Jake's obsession with bullfighting takes them to Pamplona, Spain, to experience the testosterone fuelled world of bullfighting. In the sweltering heat of Spain they meet the beguiling bullfighter Romero and a violent spectacle unfolds.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 8 February 2013

Friendship and fiesta lie at the heart of Ernest Hemingway's first great novel, which surfaced at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago in a hypnotic, verbatim version by the Elevator Repair Service (who returned to London with the eight-hour Gatz last year).

Alex Helfrecht's production is similarly loyal to the novel, but more condensed and frenetic, and the transition from Paris to Pamplona, where Hemingway's cynical journalist, Jake Barnes, forms a triangle of hedonism and heartbeat with his Jewish friend and rival, Robert Cohn, and the promiscuous socialite, Brett Ashley, less marked.

The equilibrium of this already volatile arrangement is further threatened by the incursion of a prancing matador, Jake Romero, and it's here that the show reaches its climactic expression of heat, light and sexual savagery as the good times roll.

In many ways, Hemingway's book is a document of the new Europeans in the 1920s, but there are passages of dow...

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Latest User Review

Sam - 13 February 2013:

Saw it last night and thought it was great. Fun and heartbreaking at the same time. Highly recommended!...

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