Powder Her Face Kasino am Schwatzenbergplatz Vienna
April 22nd 2019
This was a tremendous evening of music-theatre The high-ceilinged room in which the action took place had a performing area in front of the tiered seating that provided excellent sight lines. The (small) orchestra was in a ‘pit’the centre of that and there was slightly raised, wide performing area on three sides allowing entrances from both. The action often spilled over on the ground in front of the ‘stage’ where much of the action took place, occasionally spilling into the audience and also extending to the far sides of the room.
The back was had video images projected on it from time to time, most importantly the year when the action took place. The demands made on the performers in terms of physical and acting skills, never mind the fiendishly difficult music were very considerable but superbly achieved.
The story it told was at once shocking, funny and finally at the end, as the Duchess is evicted from her hotel for unpaid bills, bleak and moving. A small cast played a wide range of roles but all centering around and relating to the Duchess. Unfortunately, though sung in English, the words were at times difficult to hear but this was not a devastating flaw.
Ursula Pfitzner was stunning as the Duchess -a passionate and 100% committed performance and she was more than ably supported by the rest of the cast. The music was remarkably varied with effective use being made of parody of a range of styles. What I did greatly enjoy about the whole performance was that it combined great artifice with often brutal and luridly and gorily explicit realism – I felt that I was both experiencing a unique individual’s story and seeing certain archetypes and situations being acted out on stage. It was quite ab=n achievement of the director to be able to bring this off and it was just the right approach for this work.
A fantastic evening – and I will look out for more events like these.