Belgrade Drama Theatre, premiere 1st December 2024
Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp is not just one of the iconic figures of silent cinema, he’s one of the most iconic figures in cinema. With his smudge of a moustache and bowler hat, he’s instantly recognisable. Made in 1931, City Lights is one of his best-known films (though not so well known that the theatre didn’t feel the need to add Chaplin’s name to the title of the show).
The plot is relatively simple. Chaplin’s tramp falls in love with a blind woman who he sees selling flowers on the street. She mistakes him for a millionaire – she assumes the fancy car he has jumped out of belongs to him – and he plays along.
This isn’t the first time BITEF artistic director Nikita Milivojević and Amalia Bennett have directed a stage version of the film. They previously staged it in Greece. Now they have remounted it on the Serbian stage with guest actor Prokopis Agatokleus in the role of Chaplin alongside members of the talented ensemble at Belgrade Drama Theatre.
Milivojević and Bennett’s production is a faithful staging of the film with a heightened silent movie aesthetic and an onstage piano accompaniment from Teodoros Oikonomou. The cast and directors have embraced the challenge of translating the film’s mix of sentiment and physical comedy to the stage. With his slight frame, expressive face and emotive eyes, Agatokleus is perfectly cast. He captures Chaplin’s distinctive physicality, his bow-kneed waddle, insouciant manner and delicacy of gesture, as well as his musical hall-honed comedic abilities.
The comic centrepiece of the show is a boxing match in which Charlie squares off against heftier opponents. Much is made of the disparity of size and physique as the men circle one another In the ring. Performed with a mixture of sweaty bravado and surprising grace, it’s a scene that only succeeds if all the actors on stage work together as a machine, if every slow-motion lunge and parry is perfectly timed, and that’s the case here. The scene in which Charlie swallows a whistle and proceeds to omit little whistle-burps every few seconds is also a masterclass in precision and timing (in addition to being very funny).
Prokopis Agatokleus as Charlie Chaplin
While Agatokleus stands out, the Belgrade Drama Theatre ensemble does strong work too, conjuring an array of background characters, from swaggering boxers to high society types. It’s a choreographically complex production but they all acquit themselves well, particularly Mina Nenadović as the blind flower seller, though everyone contributes.
Stamatina Tzoka’s versatile rotating scenography consists of many moving parts, including the motor car which the Tramp leaps into, and the boxing ring. The production affords us a couple of glimpses ‘behind the scenes’ – when the characters tumble into the water, for example, the set rotates to see them bouncing about on mattresses and waving their legs in the air. At the start, we also see clapperboards and people breaking out of character. There’s a sense we’re witnessing the film being mad, but this intriguing framing device is not deployed very consistently.
At over two hours plus an interval, the production runs considerably longer than the source material. There are some longueurs and scenes that feel like padding – the subplot featuring a booze-addled millionaire slows things down – but while it takes some time to the get there, the second half is tighter and more propulsive and, by the end, the production succeeds in tugging at the heartstrings. The moment when Chaplin is reunited with the flower seller who is now able to see thanks to his generous gesture, but initially doesn’t recognise him, is genuinely affecting and the final scenes have a magical quality.
The near-wordless production is performed to live piano accompaniment by Teodoros Oikonomou in true silent movie style. It’s an accessible production, and a crowd pleasing one. It may not be as explicitly capital ‘P’ political as Chaplin’s later film The Great Dictator – and some reviews have highlighted this, asking what a show like this has to say to the current political moment, a response to which I’m sympathetic to a certain extent. It is a very gentle production, but at the same time Chaplin’s work was informed by a knowledge of poverty, his childhood In London was one of considerable hardship, and City Lights is a story about compassion and generosity, about one person going to great lengths to help another, which feels like a story that’s as worth telling now as it was then.
Above all it’s a very well-crafted performance infused with a sense of intimacy with the original and a love of physical comedy that comes through in every scene.
Credits:
Direction: Amalia Bennett, Nikita Milivojević//Adaptation: Amalia Bennett, Nikita Milivojević i Teodoros Oikonomou// Scenography: Stamatina Tzoka//Costumes: Jelena Stokuća//Lighting designer: Kristina Tanasoula
For more information, visit: bdp.rs
Natasha Tripney is a writer, editor and critic based in London and Belgrade. She is the international editor for The Stage, the newspaper of the UK theatre industry. In 2011, she co-founded Exeunt, an online theatre magazine, which she edited until 2016. She is a contributor to the Guardian, Evening Standard, the BBC, Tortoise and Kosovo 2.0
