November 2013: Scenes from a marriage

The play, based on the film of the same name by Ingmar Bergman, follows a couple through six scenes as their perfect relationship gradually disintegrates.

On arrival, the audience is divided into three groups and moves through three spaces around a small central triangle, viewing three snapshots of Johan and Marianne's marriage.

We saw the scenes in chronological order: first, a young couple giving a dinner party whose perfect image splinters after their quarrelling guests leave. Second, a couple with two children who question the humdrum habits they have fallen into of trips to their summer house and Sunday dinners with their parents. Third, a middle-aged couple who separate when Johan comes back early from a trip to announce that he is moving to Paris with his lover.

There is dark comedy in Marianne's grief as she asks: 'What time shall I set the alarm? You'll need to be up early for your trip to Paris. I haven't picked up your dry cleaning yet!'.

We catch glimpses of the other scenes through windows in the central triangle, and hear the shouts and music playing. Incorporated into the play as noisy neighbours, Johan and Marianne overhear their past and future selves.

In the second half, the audience and the three pairs of actors come together to witness the fall-out as the couple divorces. These scenes are intense as the three pairs fight out the same scene at the same time, dialogue cutting over dialogue. As one reviewer puts it, the audience must follow not double Dutch, but triple Dutch! 

Eventually, Johan and Marianne each remarry, but find themselves lovers again. In a contemplative final scene, they discuss the course of their relationship, how much they have changed and what-might-have-beens. It seems they can neither live with nor without each other.

Directed by Ivo van Hove, the play was performed in Dutch with English surtitles.