Rose Bernd

Synopsis

Rose has a terrible secret. But who can she trust and will they understand? Rose Bernd is the compassionate but shocking account of a young woman's decline by Gerhart Hauptmann, the Nobel Prize-winning giant of German theatre.

Our Review:

29 March 2005

When does a newly translated revival become a different play altogether? Does it matter if what we’re seeing as the work of Gerhart Hauptmann - in this case a play written in 1903 about a claustrophobic rustic community - bears little resemblance to the original?

Perhaps these questions become less urgent if the original is virtually forgotten, or perhaps capturing its essence is even more vital. Few in the Arcola’s audience (including me) will have much to compare with Gari Jones’ production of the second in the Last Waltz Season of turn-of-the-20th century German classics, so it may be that some of us are undeservedly consigning Rose Bernd to the second division. Dennis Kelly, who has written this new version, admits to “manipulating the text to suit my own purposes instead of Hauptmann’s” and directs anyone disappointed to seek out the original.

Kelly - a young writer who has already had some success with his play Debris and is Paines...

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Latest User Review

213.86.224.6) - 30 March 2005:

A very moving piece. Although two of the characters appeared weak, the cast moved their parts through the play expertly and made the old english completely understandable. We wanted to leap up and stop the menacing Streckman from the start and August, although vaguely comic was a truly sad man and a product of his past. Caroline Hayes portrays the tragic Rose with great depth and the final climatic scene leaves the audience stunned. Women obviously had a raw deal in the 1900's, especially the good looking and feisty ones, there was no escape. Are there struggling parallels still today?...

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