by Bertolt Brecht
Directed by: Alexandru Dabija
Brecht wrote "A Respectable Wedding" (the German original title literally means "The Petit Bourgeois Wedding") in 1919 at the age of only 21 years. In a comical way the play shows the abyss of petit bourgeois babbittry: the bridal couple, the bride's father and sister, the groom's mother and some friends meet at a wedding party. This party turns more and more into a disaster. The guests behave inappropriately, interrupting each other, treating each other with hostility or making vulgar allusions. As if this was not enough, the groom's pride and joy, all of his home-made furniture, literally breaks down. In the end, they say: "Thank God and the Devil, that they finally left!"
"The picture is painted in the strong colours of the German
Expressionism age (Otto Dix is the best reference), the characters are
defined by the actors' thick, travesty make-up, the grotesque pictures,
in such a manner that the sequent comic makes reference to the black
area of sarcasm. The show has style, it is rigorously drawn, and the
natural wood in Dragoş Buhagiar's décor has a deceiving appearance of
novelty."
"A Respectable Wedding is a funny show. Young Brecht's script
turns towards the grotesque, a register imposed on stage by the acting
style, make-up and the dismantling of the elements from the mobile décor
(chairs, tables, chaiselongue), as signs of the structural vices of the
community. The acting is unreproachful, all of them, regardless of
generation, act very well in composition roles; they are in an excellent
physical and musical shape. They all wear heavy make-up, their faces
are painted with some clay that cracks off; their make-up is a symbolic
indicator of decrepitude. A Respectable Wedding is a show of
European level which makes you not identify with the characters but to
estrange yourself from them, in order to better understand and know
them. At the German State Theatre in Timişoara, Dabija co created a show
of the purest Brechtian essence."
"The show, staged by Alexandru Dabija at the German State Theatre
Timişoara, is a good one, an agreeable one, one of rich comic, a comic
that reminds us of the pure form it had in silent films. Its
brechtianism or antibrechtianism doesn't give you head-aches. […] It has
a good rhythm, is fluent, with a sharp comic that is sometimes a little
indecent and somehow obscene. The performance of the German State
Theatre Timişoara is one in a series of Alexandru Dabija's shows in
which his directorial work gives priority to the actors. He succeeded."