The title makes you think. With the song performance I did it my way Opens the second year of the Ruhrtriennale under the artistic direction of Ivo van Hove. The name of course refers to Frank Sinatra’s song, and to the plot of the show. A black woman leaves her family and white husband from one day to the next to seek her own identity. She does it her way. But it is difficult, chewing on that iconic lyrics, not to think of Van Hoves own ‘Legacy’ at International Theater Amsterdam. Between 2001 and 2023 he was there for performances that were hailed, until last year it turned out that there had been a toxic working climate for years.
For Van Hoves intendance of the Ruhrtriennale, that discovery remained without consequences. The BOE-SALVOs who sounded on Thursday I did it my way were about the show, an an hour and a half hybrid of singing and dance that indeed does not come close to Van Hoves best work, as was shown earlier this year in a strong reprise of Angels in America At Ita.
Van Hove, also experienced in Broadway Musical, sets with I did it my way Mostly a enjoyable and visually very aesthetically elaborated performance. The first 45 minutes are reminiscent of a high school musical, a kind of ‘Our Town’ with heartbreak, with a ten -member band on the roof of the large White House that forms the decor.
Frank Sinatra’s Concept Talbum Watertown (1970) Forms the starting point, but Van Hove provided the middle class melancholy with an abandoned man with an extra layer: Nina Simone and Black Lives Matter. The deserted white man sings Sinatra, his self -seeking black woman (ao) Nina Simone.
You understand the casting choice for the famous German actor and rapper Lars Eidinger (the man). Although the show does not contain a spoken word, Eidsingers unskilled singing voice makes its interpretation of the songs human and vulnerable. But his expressive charm falls short for wearing an entire evening. That is once again noticeable because of the star power of the great singing Larissa Sirah Herden (the woman). The emotions are mirrored by four excellent dancers, but their patched movements (cramps, turning, mowing) are often too explicit to move.
In the storyline you walk smoothly across the bridge from his abandonment pain to her urge to freedom. The historical images of Martin Luther King, the violent oppression of the Civil Rights Movement and lynche victims, is wobbly with the Pro -Projected Historical Images. Billie Holidays ‘Strange Fruit’ (1939) takes your breath and the energetic ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’ (1970) still painfully relevant half a century later, the audience in Bochum (Old, Accomplished and White) proves.
But dramaturgically the mix of themes is on shaky legs, and that makes looking at it uncomfortable. Or, with a good American word, Corny. Certainly at the end, where harmony-in-diversity seems to be preached with images of flying birds and a grid pass photuts of hundreds of Americans of all outcomes.
The second edition of the Ruhrtriennale led by Ivo van Hove will last until September 21. The theme is how we can discover and create new mutual connections and relationships in a world full of tensions.