Review
The role of ballet, the stage form the play takes, is not to impress with virtuosity but to transform the literary material into a comedy of manners. The humor of this swan lake, with dancers who don’t rise onto their toes or execute perfect pirouettes, brings to light the human limitations of the characters.
A feminist film, as well as an overt critique of the neoliberal society which took over Eastern Europe in very aggressive forms after 1989, ”Don’t expect too much from the end of the world” is a way to fight back using images from the archives, a favorite means of the award-winning Romanian film director Radu Jude.
Of course, there are more questions than answers in this smart and sometimes funny despite the subject production directed by Lila Neuberger, and this is how it should be. The inspired directorial decision to place it in the round space of The Anspacher at the Public Theater, with almost no stage design, except the lights and some chairs, reminds us that theatre is an agora where concepts like democracy can and should be revisited and in-depth analyzed.
