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The Dreyfus Affair

Show poster for The Dreyfus Affair
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The Dreyfus Affair

Opening Night: April 27, 2017
Closing: May 7, 2017
Theater: BAM Fisher

Presented by Ensemble for the Romantic Century
False arrest. Intrigue. Conspiracy. Undying love. Jewish artillery officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to solitary confinement on Devil’s Island in 1894. In the aftermath, France was torn apart in a seismic political clash between progressive Dreyfusards and right-wing anti-Dreyfusards that pitted friends against friends and neighbors against neighbors. The Dreyfus Affair tells a story of political passions, political will, and unswerving loyalty that resonates to this very day.

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Elisabeth
Vincentelli

April 30, 2017

The toxic mess of nationalism and anti-Semitism known as the Dreyfus Affair deeply divided France in the late 19th century, but any observer of the National Front’s ideology will know that the scandal’s legacy continues to poison French society.

A sense of anxiety is established from the beginning of “The Dreyfus Affair,” a hybrid of concert and theater that has become the signature style of the Ensemble for the Romantic Century.

Gyorgy Ligeti’s creepy “String Quartet No. 2” opens the production. The live music is paired with abstract projections incorporating jumbled typography. (Handwriting played a key role, as Dreyfus was framed for treason in 1894 based on an unsigned letter.)

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