Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead runs at BAM for only five performances
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
November 28 – December 2, $35-$140
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
tga.nl/en
Since he joined Toneelgroep Amsterdam in 2001, Belgian director Ivo Van Hove has presented wildly unusual and unique versions of such films and plays as Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage and After the Rehearsal / Persona, Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge and The Crucible, Shakespeare’s Othello and The Taming of the Shrew, John Cassavetes’s Husbands, Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, Jean Cocteau’s La Vox Humaine, and Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers and Obsession. Among his productions to appear at BAM are the Shakespeare compilations Roman Tragedies and Kings of War, Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, Cassavetes’s Opening Night, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and Sophocles’s Antigone. It’s a vast, diverse, and staggering output, one that continues this week with the BAM Next Wave Festival New York premiere of his 2014 adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel, The Fountainhead, the beloved tome of such Republicans as Paul Ryan. Taking place in an open-office plan, the show features set and lighting by Jan Versweyveld, music by Eric Sleichim, video design by Tal Yarden, and costumes by An D’Huys. Ramsey Nasr plays Howard Roark, with Halina Reijn as Dominique Francon, Hans Kesting as Gail Wynand, Aus Greidanus jr. as Peter Keating, and Bart Slegers as Ellsworth Toohey. The book was turned into a 1949 film directed by King Vidor starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal that lasted less than two hours; Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s version, adapted by Koen Tachelet, translated by Erica van Rijsewijk and Jan van Rheenen, and directed by van Hove, lasts four hours. It begins, “Howard Roark laughed.” There’s no telling what will come after that in the hands of van Hove, but strap yourself in for what should be at the very least a rather unconventional evening.