The plays of Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) deserve to be revived more often. In Britain he survives mainly in Verdi’s operas. The Robbers, an overblown romantic melodrama, is a young man’s work and was begun when he was 19 and still at school. The script, passionate in its anger and raging against a corrupt Establishment, was wildly successful at its premiere in 1782, bringing him instant fame. Ten years later the French revolutionary assembly made him an honorary citizen of the French Republic.
There are two brothers: the good guy turns Robin Hood and leads a band of criminals; the bad guy spreads lies about his brother, puts his father in prison and attempts to seduce his brother’s fiancée. The translation is very free and it often feels as if the actors are throwing in their own lines. Mark Leipacher’s bare and gritty production has plenty of verbal and physical energy and he also knows how to put slow motion to good dramatic use. The final bloody killing spree is directed as if it were a scene out of a John Woo Hong Kong action movie with revolvers pointing at everybody’s head and the audience wondering who is going to shoot first.