8/10 - Die Ärztin by Robert Icke, directed by Anne Muelleners at the Schauspielhaus Graz

This was by far the most challenging reflection to filter and write about. I saw it a few months ago, but since then have had numerous conversations, debates and discussions with my fellow theatre colleagues about it. I can’t say I am 100% sure where I stand with it but I will try my best to put some coherent words to my thoughts, all while I remain honest to myself. (Disclosure: if anyone takes any offence on the following, it’s on them!) Also, for once I am glad I didn’t know of the show and what it is about, because I could just observe it like a regular audience member. And it is from this perspective that I will convey my thoughts below.

Robert Icke’s The Doctor, directed for the Schauspielhaus Graz by Anne Muelleners had something very, very familiar about it! I couldn’t really figure out what it was at first, but days later the penny dropped. This familiarity didn’t have anything to do with the staging per se, but had everything to do with the style of the staging: it looked and felt very British - it only came to my attention later that the director read directing in London, so in hindsight it’s no shocker - and normally this should excite me, since I am interested to see how different directing styles transfer and translate into other cultures, let alone in another language. BUT, on this occasion it was somewhat uncomfortable to experience, because I felt the public (consisting of all ages, faiths and genders) was not considered when creating the concept in itself. I am not saying artists should exclusively create for the public, but however you take it, your work will be seen and consumed by at least one person and that in itself lifts the production from a one-way street-relationship to a two-way-street one, with all its implications. (Unless you are creating for yourself, away from public eyes, in which case you shouldn’t worry at all about this particular relationship.)

As it was a challenging play to digest, I will give a short synopsis: Ruth Wolff, a successful doctor running a prestigious private clinic, refuses a catholic black priest to administer the last rites to a dying teenager, who has self-induced an abortion. The reasoning behind it from the perspective of Ruth lies in administering ultimate care for the patient in her last living moments. The priest on the other hand sees this denial not only as an act of disrespect towards the religious belief of the patient - who doesn’t appear to have expressed any consent for the final rites to be administered - but

@ Schauspielhaus Graz | Johanna Lamprecht

also as a sign of prejudice and racism. This isn’t apparent in the conversation between the two characters, but one can see how and why the priest’s character could jump to that specific conclusion. By this I believe Icke’s trying to highlight how underlying subtitles in the conversations we conduct daily can be interpreted, misjudged, misread and used for or against one’s opinions and beliefs.

Following this incident, a media shitstorm erupts and the viewer is invited to follow the consequences of Ruth’s actions. But it’s at the discretion of the public to decide what nuances of the story they choose to side with.

Now, more to Icke’s text and how it is supposed to be staged - its purpose is to go beyond the idea of colour and gender. And that is where in my opinion it got a bit messy with this specific staging. Colour-blind casting is at the heart of this production (as it was back in 2019 at London’s Almeida Theatre when it was staged with Juliet Stevenson playing the lead character Ruth Wolff) but I am not quite sure how well this translated for the Austrian public. It must have been well into the play, probably ⅓ into it, when I realised that all the colours and genders were swapped, apart from the main character’s one, Ruth Wolff - a white, lesbian, secular Jewish doctor. I welcomed the intellectual challenge, but what I didn’t appreciate was having to break my focus from the play in order to adapt to the new reality of the show unfolding.

But then have this adjustment interrupted again ⅔ into the show by one black character played by an actual black person, when up until that point everyone on stage was a different gender and colour, was a real mental challenge, as out of the sudden one had to readjust again to the new twist in the narrative and go with it.

@ Schauspielhaus Graz | Johanna Lamprecht

In the after-show discussion, the director posed the question if the text/production managed to deliver the concept of colour-blind casting, or if we naturally reverted back to seeing the actors for what they are: their from-outside perceived gender and colour, and that this is what we should really take away as food for thought - can theatre achieve this? You see, I am not quite sure you can just rely on the text delivering this concept and expect the viewer to be on board with it from the beginning. Just as you prepare a text, a show, a production to achieve your vision, you also have to consider how to prepare the audience to come on board with you in delivering the vision of your production.

I suppose the quasi toned down aesthetic helped lay a more neutral, clinical background - which the simple yet very effective set design eased the viewer into accepting this cold and impersonal environment - against which the colour-blind casting could have efficiently stood out. But even then, it needed a bit more from the onset in terms of efficient use of creative tools to set up the concept of the show and the overall scene. For all it’s worth, the portrayal of the characters was very good, and that goes without saying when it comes to the ensemble of the Schauspielhaus Graz. By now, if you’ve read my previous entries, you might have gotten the idea of the high-quality performances these actors achieve. Having said that though, at times there were moments where I could sense a slight tension, and I couldn’t distinguish whether or not these were the characters projecting it, or because the actors were feeling tense on stage.

@ Schauspielhaus Graz | Johanna Lamprecht

I enjoyed the production, the creative layers and levels one had to absorb whilst watching the show unfold, but coming from a theatre background and being a director myself, I can’t stop but wonder if I should feel privileged for truly understanding the deeper meaning and concept behind this performance due to my chosen profession, and sorry for the general public who might not have grasped the whole picture/essence of the portrayed stories, due to maybe being oblivious to certain matters so heatedly discussed in today’s society.

I think the staging as it is now would have probably hit a home run in Haus 2 (the 100-seater black studio of the SHG), as it is more of an intimate space, bringing the public physically, and therefore emotionally, closer to the matter at hand. And maybe then it could have had the effect, the impact that this text and its staging was maybe looking for?

When deciding on staging a show in Haus 1, the main stage, one needs to take into consideration so many aspects that will inadvertently add onto the layer of a production/performance, simply because it is there, it’s a given, it’s inherent. And one such aspect is the space itself. A show should be strong enough, has to perform well enough, to take away from the ‘soul’, the given atmosphere of the opulence you’re faced with the moment you step into the auditorium. The theatre’s main stage is overwhelmingly beautiful, has a fantastic neoclassical architecture that carries so much weight, richness, history and character. One needs to learn to work with that and if you want to contrast that on the stage, your performance better achieve that on all levels (performance wise, stage design, the essence of the play, direction etc.). It either should complement (like ‘The Kingdom’ did) or contrast (like ‘Bunbury. Ernst sein is everything’). On this occasion, it just didn’t hit those creative angles and therefore was just slightly off - which again took away from the actual strength and essence of the play.

Maybe the text didn’t allow for too much manoeuvring, maybe one couldn’t really edit and/or tweak the text, maybe there were some strict guidelines one had to obey with Icke’s text - I admit, I don’t know. But kudos to Anne, for her courage to grab this mammoth of a play and stage it for the Grazer public, for attempting an Icke in a, shall we say, more bourgeois setting, and then come face-to-face with the public in after-show conversations. I hope that sometime further down the line in Anne’s creative journey she’ll stage Icke’s play again, because I would love to see what she’d do with it then, how her creative perspective would have changed, and what her then-thoughts would be on this play!

The fact that it took me this long to put my thoughts down into words only means that to a certain extent this production truly achieved to send me in a whirlwind of reflections and thought-provoking debates with myself. In other words, I really enjoyed the intellectual challenge the staging of this show has brought, not to mention the heated conversations with other fellow theatre makers (N.B. heated but very enjoyable!!).

To find out more about this play please visit following link (German only): Die Ärztin | Schauspielhaus Graz

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