AFTER poor reviews of some current shows and the uproar over the radical re-structuring of the company, the RSC needed a hit - The Prince of Homburg, I suspect, isn't it.
With Neil Bartlett directing - whose recent production of Marivaux's The Dispute was much admired - and a critical buzz about the rare performance of an oddly modern 19th century German "masterpiece" - the omens were good.
It is the night before he is due to lead his troops into battle; the prince is sleepwalking, his mind racing with love, ambition and victory. But a single reckless act of disobedience in the morning sets in motion a chain of events which threaten his death.
The set is minimalist, dark, claustrophobic - echoes of Elsinore - but this prince is not Hamlet and, so far as one can tell, Heinrich Von Kleist is no Shakespeare. Many of the cast are excellent - the odd fluffed lines aside - but their words too often grate - "You have me stumped," "Rome wasn't built in a day." It improves as the evening wears on but I cannot take my hat off to Homburg.
PW
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