The Prince of Homburg by Heinrich von Kleist – Donmar Warehouse ****

The hubristic Prince of Homburg is the darling of the Prussian court, raised by the Elector and his wife as if he were one of their own. Prone to sleep-walking, Homburg is discovered in the grounds of the Elector’s palace in a deep trance. The Elector exploits the situation, placing a wreath of laurel on Homburg’s head and offering up to him his niece, Natalia, as a prize. Homburg awakens, with only a woman’s white glove in his hand to testify to the veracity of his dream. For someone prone to reverie, it is significant that the Prince doesn’t experience such an episode again; instead Homburg must face the harsh reality of the Elector’s wrath. Homburg achieves victory on the battlefield by disobeying the Elector’s orders and is thus punished as an example to all who would deliberately act against his commands. Heartbreakingly, Natalia has fallen in love with Homburg and agrees to marry him as soon as it is erroneously reported that the Elector has died in battle. After condemning Homburg to death, the Elector is beseeched by Natalia to pardon Homburg and she is jubilant when he issues her with a writ to release Homburg from confinement. However, the writ is a double bind and, in order for Homburg to secure his freedom, he must state that the Elector has acted wrongly. This is a devastating twist and Homburg then has to choose between living in infamy, as one who would speak against the regime in which he wholeheartedly believes, and a noble death.

This play benefits immensely from the intimate space at the Donmar where the pitiful anguish expressed by Charlie Cox’s Homburg is intensely felt in this slick production which packs a real existential punch. Despite the intimacy, the Elector’s palace is a grey, minimalist structure – its imposing edifice as inhuman as Ian MacDiarmid’s Elector. His diminutive tyrant is thankfully more than your average cardboard cut-out despot; we glimpse his fear at losing a tenuous hold on power over an increasingly disaffected court. But it is significant that both Natalia and Homburg are adopted by the Elector as daughter and son and yet are treated as mere pawns in his power game; their insistence on the fact that the Elector has been like a father to them is no subtle indicator that the Elector is acting monstrously towards them, like no true parent would. The power of this play lies in the way it sustains an internal struggle in the audience to reconcile the desperate situation of Homburg’s death sentence with the coldly rational actions of the Elector. Homburg then matches this rationality with his own self-defeating logic which ultimately seals his fate.

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