Wednesday, November 20, 2013

'Norway Plays': A Pair of Quirky Scandinavian Delights At Theater For The New City

Ioan Ardelean and Alexandra Cohen Spiegler
Photo By Yann Bean


There’s nothing wrong with Norway Plays:  Drama Beyond Ibsen  that could not be cured with a revised title, something like Those Wild and Crazy Norwegians, perhaps.

So, let this serve as notice that if you are seeking an intellectual evening exploring the darkness of the soul or absorbing diatribes about individual rights, you are heading out to the wrong venue. 

Instead, what you will see is a highly entertaining pair of one-acts by contemporary Norwegian playwrights. The first, The Returning, is a funny and quirky modern-day fairy tale by Fredrik Brattbert. The second, More, is a surrealistic and quirky play by Maria Tryti Vennerød. Both boast outstanding performances by their respective casts as well as excellent directing (Henning Hegland helms the first; Joan Kane does the honors on the second). 

Even before The Returning begins, you might very well be lulled into believing you truly are in Ibsen territory, or possibly that of Strindberg or Chekhov.  The silence is disturbed only by the ticking and occasional chiming of a mantel clock—a sad and lonely sound. As the play opens, you see a woman sitting on the sofa, knitting, while a man dressed in a bathrobe stands apart from her, seemingly staring into space.  You get a sense of a pair of lost souls who are no longer able to connect with one another.  She invites him to sit next to her; he demurs, muttering something about a lost dog.  This is an unhappy couple, you think.

And then we learn they have lost their only child, a teenage boy who simply disappeared one day while on a skiing trip. 

OK.  Did I mention that The Returning is funny and quirky?  Since the plot hangs on a string of events related to the missing son, I will try to avoid being a spoiler here.  Let me just say this: if Stephen King had written Pet Sematery with a sense of its comic possibilities, he might have come up with something like The Returning.

The cast of three, Ingrid Kullberg-Bendz, Andrew Langton, and Kristoffer Tonning, are delightful—with Mr. Tonning a real charmer as the adorable but irritating teenager, Gustav.  It’s a lot of fun to watch the shift in the actors’ tone and style as the play moves from dark to light to off-the-wall wacky. 

Oh, and keep an eye on the knitting, which adds a touch of its own sublime weirdness to the unfolding events. 

The second play in the twosome, More, eschews Ibsen for Kafka, and takes the notion of “media circus” to new and surrealistic heights.  It is so very difficult to successfully pull off absurdist theater without tumbling inappropriately into burlesque or slapstick comedy.  So truly Ms. Vennerød deserves high praise for this most excellent juggling act, in which the murder of a teenage girl, Benedickte (Skyler Volpe), by her best friend Ida (Christina Toth) serves as fodder for two television reporters/media personalities (gloriously portrayed by Alexandra Cohen Spiegler and Ioan Ardelean).  The pair put pressure on the police to help them sell the killing as “a lesbian crime of passion” and then prod their audience:  “Stupid?  Evil?  Or Mean?  Call in and vote!” 

The truth, of course, is far more complicated—but, hey, this is the world of sound bites, instant causes célèbres, and reality TV, so who cares about actual reality?

As was true of The Returning, the cast of More is first-rate, and includes—in addition to the ones I have already mentioned--Erik Schjerven and Chevy Kaeo Martinez as a pair of detectives caught up in the media blitz.  Special notice must be given to Shannon Stowe’s well-choreographed movement that flows through the production and melds acting with performance art. 

Thanks, Norway, for sharing these works by two of your rising stars.  Thanks, too, to Ego Actus and Scandinavian American Theater Company for presenting Norway Plays:  Drama Beyond Ibsen, which you can catch until December 1 at Theater For The New City.   

Now, about that title…


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