The Handmaid's Tale at English National Opera
Those familiar with the TV show will find that this production instills the same levels of terror and discomfort: the plight if the Handmaids, the ruthlessness of Gilead‘s commanders, the ambivalent complexity of the Aunts, and the rallying cry of hopeful rebellion are bone-chillingly depicted.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎭 The Handmaid‘s Tale
🎶 Paul Ruders
💭 Annilese Miskimmon, 2022
🏛️ English National Opera
🗓️ 12.04.2022
“MEMORY IS STRENGTH, LOVE IS RESISTANCE”
To commemorate today‘s presidential inauguration in the US I want to highlight this 2022 production of THE HANDMAID‘S TALE at English National Opera. Few pieces of pop culture have left such a lasting impression as Margaret Atwood‘s seminal 1984 novel. Not only was her dystopian story well-received when first published, but even 40 years later it stuns us through the critically acclaimed TV show, the 2019 sequel book, or this new production of the 2000 opera. With our current geopolitical climate—and the inauguration of no. 47–some might say THE HANDMAIDS TALE is more relevant than perhaps ever.
I leave the contemporary contextualization to this ENO blurb: “In the early years of 21st-century America, appalled by widespread physical, moral and spiritual pollution – and, above all, by the low birth-rate caused by the climate crisis – right-wing fundamentalists have assassinated the President and members of the Congress and installed their own Bible-based dictatorship known as the Republic of Gilead. They have denied women the right to work or possess property, to read or write.” Does life imitate art?
Those familiar with the TV show will find that this staged production is capable to instilling the same levels of terror and discomfort: the plight if the Handmaids, the ruthlessness of Gilead‘s commanders, the ambivalent complexity of the Aunts, and the rallying cry of hopeful rebellion are bone-chillingly depicted. The very minimal but visually powerful staging invokes the dehumanizingly oppressive architecture of 20th century fascism, and the piercing intensity of the music underscores the fact that this opera has its own genre on the ENO website: “Dystopian”. Mostly, however, it is the visual language of the costumes and specifically the colors which are most powerful. In fact, the production manages to capture well the dull and cold color palette of the TV show, and the red robes—present on-stage as the auditorium fills—offer the only source of warmth throughout.
Readers of the source text will recognize that in the opera version, we too jump between three different points in time. The opera begins in the year 2195–a time after which even Gilead has fallen—at a convention of the „International Historical Association“, where the recently discovered audio tapes by handmaid Offred are the topic of much discussion. The contents of the audio tapes are then acted out on stage as the main plot of the opera, with flashbacks to a pre-Gilead time shown as black and white projections.
While the ENO FAQ section for this opera confidently tells us that no, this is not a real story, watching events of the last weeks and months unfold (thinking of billionaire tech losers kowtowing to post-fascist heads of government) I‘m unfortunately less certain. If anything, THE HANDMAID‘S TALE teaches us that indeed, it can get much worse before it will get better again. But it also teaches us that, on a time scale beyond that of a single lifetime, even a regime like Gilead will once be a distant memory. Let us hope: it gets better!
