Stéphane Braunschweig’s Measure for Measure: A (German and French) Vienna Midway Between Britain and Italy

Abstract

The German-speaking director Stéphane Braunschweig centres his work mostly on the German contemporary, yet he turned to Shakespeare on a few occasions, especially in this memorable staging of Measure for Measure performed in English by actors from Nottingham Playhouse, premiered at the 1997 Official Edinburgh Festival, then performed at the Barbican, and which toured in France with great success. In this paper I would like to discuss the artistic and cultural imp act of borrowings from English, Italian and French cultures in a play set in a rather non-defined Vienna by Shakespeare, also taking into account the differences of reception according to the country where it was performed.

Keywords

• performance
• experimentation
• enunciation practices
• delocalization