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Wallenstein

by Freidrich Schiller (Adapted by Mike Poulton)

Chichester Minerva

Reviews

The role of Wallenstein is a great one, endowed by Iain Glen with the perfect mix of arrogance, idealism, vanity and vulnerability. One only wishes Glen spent more time on the classical stage. Angus Jackson’s hurtling production has first-rate support from Anthony Calf as the devious Octavio, John McEnery as a spidery war minister, Tom Brooke as a calculating Swedish colonel and Charlotte Emmerson as the hero’s ruinously intemperate sister-in-law. If you relish historical-political drama on the grand scale, get down to Chichester.

– The Guardian, Michael Billingtom

Schiller’s verse drama of a fallen idol, rarely seen here, deserves to be much better known, especially in such a thrilling production as this one by Angus Jackson… Completed in 1799, the trilogy can run to ten hours, and has here been compressed, by Mike Poulton, to less than three…it does not feel rushed – rather, jet-propelled. A superb cast, whose verse-reading is supple and muscular, drive this tale of a military commander who defies God, emperor, and nation until all that awaits him is a knife or a noose.

– The Independent, Rhoda Koening

Mike Poulton is becoming Britain’s Friedrich Schiller… Here’s a piece that makes Shakespeare’s history plays seem morally unsubtle. What’s the meaning of duty, loyalty, oaths? With the protestant Wallenstein obsessively poring over astrological charts, what’s the place of chance, fate, faith, religion in human affairs? Anyone who thinks complexity is a dramatic plus will relish this brisk, bold revival. Glen catches the contradictions of the soldier who sees himself as a new Julius Caesar: chivalric yet arrogant, charismatic yet naïve.

– The Times, Benedict Nightingale

Chichester Festival Theatre has come up with a handsome production of this fine play.

– Daily Mail, Quentin Letts

Credits

Iain Glen
Prince Albert von Wallenstein
Jessica Turner
Elizabeth von Wallenstein
Anthony Calf
Count Octavio Piccolomini
Paul Hickey
Count Terzky
Charlotte Emmerson
Countess Terzky
Max Irons
Max Piccolomini
Annabel Scholey
Princess Thelka
Fergus O’Donnell
A friar / Gotz
Denis Conway
Buttler
Tom Brooke
Gustav Wrangle
Ferdy Roberts
Isolani / The Mayor of Eger
Sebastian Armesto
Illo
John McEnery
von Questenberg / Gordon
James Atherton
Kinsky / Page
Andrew Westfield
A butler / Soldier
Director
Angus Jackson
Design
Robert Innes Hopkins
Lighting
James Whiteside
Sound
Jonathan Suffolk
Fight Direction
Terry King
Photographer
Catherine Ashmore


Photos

One only wishes Glen spent more time on the classical stage.