Director Jamie Garven on Festen
“Festen is fascinating
because of the structure: it’s a powerful and dramatic journey
within a concise, yet epic play. The revelation is the catalyst to
the action, not the climax. Christian is a revolutionary, pulling
down the whole system when he challenges his father. I’m interested
in the huge space of the Bute Theatre, working with the
architecture rather than a set.” Jamie Garven,
Director
The audience are invited to gather at the head of the family’s
60th birthday celebratory dinner. But at this grand family
occasion, the oldest daughter will be absent, her funeral has taken
place a month before. Her twin brother, Christian, feels compelled
to reveal the secret at the heart of this close-knit family, and
the reason for his sister’s suicide:
A modern day version of Hamlet, this stark dramatisation of the
Dogme film and Danish play, is a darkly comic piece, about the
embarrassment of the truth, which must be avoided at all costs to
maintain the status quo. Christian is the Hamlet figure, consumed
with guilt and the feeling that he must act, digging at the
underlying decay and revealing the darkest of family skeletons.
The ‘celebration’ becomes a weekend that none of them will ever
forget