The National Theatre of Norway's visit to Print Room at the Coronet last year with a lacerating production of Ibsen's Little Eyolf has led to one of the most exciting collaborations in London theatre. Whatever the disasters the removal of EU free movement may mean for our cultural scene, Norway has the funds to make sure that the new company founded by the Allmers in that production, top actor Kåre Conradi, flourishes. The Norwegian Ibsen Company's first major offering, a slightly adapted update of The Lady from the Sea, maintains the level of vision we saw in Little Eyolf.
In one way, it adds to it. There's a clear distinction in the play between those Norwegians who long for freedom and the sea on the one hand and the more contained land-creatures like Wangel, who has married Ellida, 'The Lady from the Sea', on the other. So a mixed cast of British and Norwegian actors, slipping naturally from one language into another (English translation on the back wall, as in Little Eyolf, when Norwegian is spoken) suits one theme of the play.
Let's get the only weak link out of the way first. For me, Adrian Rawlins' Wangel (pictured above with Pia Tjelta; all images by Tristram Kenton) didn't quite add up: too nervy, rather unconvincing in the explosions of anger. I can't help wishing that Conradi, superb as the teacher Arnholm who returns on a misunderstanding to 'claim' Wangel's older daughter Bolette, had taken the more crucial character. But Rawlins, like Øystein Røger as a silver-fox, all-too-real Stranger, interacted well with the mesmerising Pia Tjelta, returning after her great performance as Rita Allmers in Little Eyolf to take on another of Ibsen's most compelling roles.
Proud but terrorised by her long-term images of the man who tried to claim her soul at sea, Tjelta's Ellida lets us read every emotion in her face. The voice, deep and sensual, does half the work. We're stricken with pity that Wangel as doctor plies her with pills - anti-depressants, tranquillisers? - to which it turns out he's not averse either. And then the magnificent straightening-up in the moment of decision, when the weight of constraining fantasy is lifted off her shoulders; it carries what can be a difficult moment dramatically. Much as I enjoyed Kwame Kwei-Armah's production at the Young Vic, which perhaps had a lighter touch, it didn't drive home in the same way that outward forces can also get buried and distorted deep in the psyche. A myth of the elements becomes an introspective drama. I thought of Sibelius, where dynamics of the soul are too often taken for forces of nature - the music has both, of course - and of Wagner, the second act of whose Die Walküre Jurowski described as 'an Ibsen play put inside a Homer epic'.
The test for the ensemble - this version sheds one character, Ballestad - really comes after the interval, in a sequence of devastating one-to-ones. The casting of three young people fresh from drama school is inspired. Edward Ashley (pictured above with Tjelta) manages the difficulty of making consumptive young artist Lyngstrand sympathetic even in his expectations of what a woman-as-wife should be for her husband - how daring for 1888 to have the object of his expectations challenge this so directly - while Marina Bye, fresh from the Guildhall as Bolette (pictured below with Conradi), seems to follow in Tjelta's footsteps in showing us what this girl longing for freedom, maybe at any price, is feeling at every moment.
Molly Windsor (pictured below with Rawlins) tells us who dangerous, impetuous Hilde Wangel, longing for love, is immediately, and what she will become in The Master Builder.
These are strong and yet paradoxically vulnerable women (that's the ambiguity of Ibsen's infinite depths for you). Director Marit Moum Aune has a masterstroke at the end: I shouldn't spoil it, but let's just say it's a grouping of which a modern audience wholeheartedly approves. Erlend Birkeland's set, making good use of a wide-projecting stage, gives the characters plenty of sand to play with; Simon Bennison's lighting works its magic and, when necessary, mystery.
The false note for me was the anodyne and way too persistent muzak of Nils Petter Molvær; I concede that a little might be necessary for the supposedly supernatural element, but better none at all than this. Otherwise, on with the next project. I might just go and see this one again; it runs until 9 March. Meanwhile, onwards to a Lithuanian sea-picture and Grieg's incidental music to Peer Gynt in Birmingham on Saturday. Then it's back to Norway, and a snowy inland landscape for a music festival with a difference.
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17 comments:
Your observation that “outward forces can also get buried and distorted deep in the psyche” is so striking. I don’t know these plays, but I suspect that insight must be central to Ibsen’s work, and how marvelous to see this realized so fully on stage.
I'm glad that made sense. I found it difficult to express. And you're right, it's central to Peer Gynt and the later plays especially. And the complexity of Ibsen's human understanding, so extraordinary and timeless.
More than than made sense, it resonated strongly, and I suspect would to many in these fraught times.
have just heard of the 7 MPs quitting Labour. If the party had officially opposed Brexit from the start, like Plaid Cymru, the LibDems, the Greens and the SNP, there would have been no need for this schism.
ps my end? no funeral or obsequies of any kind, no Last Rites, just cremation in a simple cardboard box, from hospital(presumably) to crem, without involving funeral directors or clergymen. I shall be saving money to the last. The money saved can buy friends a nice meal at a nice restaurant instead, say The Tower on Chamber Street, above the museum.
Of course. For Starmer, it must have been infuriating to be told that the last paragraph he'd drafted for Corbyn about a People's Vote had been 'inadvertently missed off'. The old Trot is spitting in so many people's faces. He has more in common with the pathological prevarication of Mrs Mayhem than with most of his own party.
Where were we discussing ends? Maybe in the entry on George Saunders? Sounds a bit bleak to me but at least you hint at some kind of gathering of friends, which is the important thing. Many decades in the future, I hope. You will let me know, won't you?
Sue - of course, I hadn't thought of now, but the pressure of present events is certainly playing havoc with our psyches.
The Brexit chaos is the result of a clash between the wisdom of the British Constitution in which Parliament is sovereign and the referendum where the result is taken to determine the policy of Parliament. This logical clash has determined the policy of government - one can say that Mrs May is acting exactly as one would expect in this situation. What other policy could she follow? And she has to deal with a split party and a split parliament at home. Only a second referendum can untie the Gordian knot, even if it (unfortunately in my view) sticks to Brexit
Where do I start with 'what other policy could she follow'? This is not the place, but in brief, she drew way too many red lines to appease the extremists in her party and now she's pushed into a corner. Her attempt to try and renegotiate the backstop is insane. part of her pathological persistence, and her gameplaying with the threat of No Deal criminally irresponsible. Meanwhile billions go on being lost that should be devoted to our own disastrous situation.
The splits in both parties show us a political system that's no longer working. The centre cannot hold in either case, so it needs to move elsewhere. I'm sure we will see Tories following the Labour 7 (now 8) very soon.
And yes, a 'people's vote' is the only way forward, fraught though that undoubtedly will be.
I stick to my point - the most marvelous British constitution includes a sovereign parliament and the referendum has distorted that. On the Labour side (apart from the parallel Brexit split) there is also the contortion of the constitution in giving power to the party activists, who should be told that, as they with modern technology they do not have to stuff envelope, they should stuff themselves: ditto on the Tory side, though that problem is not so entrenched there. I may be too logical, but with these constraints in the Commons any policy by the government is bound to be incoherent;. any clear and sensible policy would run into one barrier or another straight away. On a particular point, I cannot understand why the whole of the Commons except the mad Brexiteers does not reject No Deal. Remember however that it is a card in Mrs May's hand. She has to decide when to play it.Politics is like that
The problem is not so entrenched on the Tory side? Are you kidding? It was to appease the far right fruitcakes that Cameron called the damned Referendum in the first place. Labour's most recent woes stem from appointing another intransigent, the old Trot, as leader. How different it would have been if they'd settled for Yvette Cooper (not that I find her entirely inspiring). There might even have been a strong opposition over the past two and a half years.
I was not clear - what I meant was that the influence of the Tory constituencies, although strong, is not so entrenched as it is on the Labour side. And the support by the Labour MPs for Corbyn was trivial.....the MPs put him on the ballot paper so that the left would have someone to vote for, not realising that the activists were solidly for Corbyn's policies. In this mess the sort of PM that could manage the circus would be Harold Wilson, who was extremely and cleverly devious, or Harold Macmillan, who pointed one way and moved in another ( and with his aristocratic approach could have handled the Tory constituencies)
What about John Major? No Referendum under him, I'd imagine. And I love it that he's such a close ally for Labour MP Chris Mullin as vividly recorded in the latter's excellent diaries.
Now, anyone for Ibsen?
Anyone for a Skandinavian world view? Ibsen, Grieg,Munch. Anything to do with the seasons? I have seen young men and women ( and the not so young) as the winter ends throwing off nearly all their clothes to grasp at the first sunlight after the long darkness
And then they get all-day sunlight. The summer nights are as celebrated in the Nordic countries as the dark winters...Grieg I still think of as essentially a child of light. I'll never forget visiting Gothenburg in March, when on a sunny but freezing cold day so many folk were sitting in the cafes' outside areas in summer wear.
Thank you for this, David. I’ll certainly look out for this company. You mention actors speaking Norwegian. I confess I’ve never quite understood whether Ibsen wrote in Danish, Norwegian or a combination of the two. And in contemporary productions, do Norwegian productions ‘modernise’ the text?
Interesting question, to which I hadn't previously given much thought. I found this useful explanation of how Ibsen evolved from the Danish then in use in Norway: 'In the beginning, both his spelling, grammar and vocabulary was very close to standard literary Danish of Denmark, but he gradually introduced spelling and vocabulary closer to spoken Norwegian Rigsmål of the upper classes, and popular dialects (in dialogues). It seems that he finally came to a language close to the spoken language of the higher strata of the Norwegian society, but still very Danish in spelling.'
the only reason I brought up the matter of funerals was because in an older blog you said you hadn't yet decided between burial and cremation for yourself. I was merely putting the case for a "post-Humanist ceremony" action wherein I'm essentially put out with the rubbish, which doesn't concern me a bit, and saves much money. And pace David Damant, one doesn't CANONICALLY NEED Last Rites or Viaticum, much less a Requiem Mass, so they can easily be omitted. But my end is not nigh, at least I hope not. Edinburgh in mild spring weather is fine.
Ah. I dimly remember writing so, but can't remember where. The whole business of memorials to the dead came up again when we went to a ceremony to celebrate Blondin in Kensal Green Cemetery, which I've never visited before. How nature takes over and distorts most of the monuments. And for most people, once their memory in the next generation of two is gone, so is the need for a monument. Still, it's a lovely place to walk - so much space in a built-up area. Wouldn't real estate folk love to get their hands on it? It's still privately owned, I understand, whereas Brompton Cemetery now comes under the aegis of the Royal Parks and Gardens - in fact it was taken over by the state in the mid-19th century not long after the original company ran into dire straits.
Another interesting tale was relayed to me of a chap who left his ashes between 12 friends, each of whom had to sprinkle some somewhere - one elected to tuck his portion down the back of a sofa in a pub where the deceased used to sit and be ignored...
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