Ibsen in the spirit of Strømgren
(Norway Today / NTB / the Norwegian Opera): A Doll’s House is Jo Strømgren’s twist on the immortal drama by Henrik Ibsen, played in a dollhouse. From 21 to 23 June, the performance can be experienced at Scene 2 in the Norwegian Opera in Oslo.
A Doll’s House is perhaps the world’s most performed theatrical play. Jo Strømgren Kompani is true to Ibsen’s text, but at the same time shows how the characters perform outside the four walls of the house before and after their presence in the drama. With a physical form language and sensual tango music, the audience is exposed to soulful agony, vague facades and existential settlement. Helmer’s scenic house is shrunk and claustrophobic – a dollhouse with scaled-down rooms and furniture.
“When conflicts arise at home, every house feels too small,” Jo Strømgren said when the production premiered at the Fringe Arts Festival in Philadelphia in 2015, where it had a packed house. In January 2016, A Doll’s House had a national premiere in the Opera, and scored five out of six on the die cast by Aftenposten.
Besides Nora and Thorvald, the characters Mrs Linde, the lawyer Krogstad and Dr. Rank receive more attention in this version. Actors Suli Holum, Trey Lyford, Leonard C. Haas, Mary Lee Bednarek and Pearce Bunting are all part of the alternative American theater community, some of them in New York and others in Philadelphia.
Co-production between Jo Strømgren Kompani and FringeArts
Jo Strømgren is the National Ballet’s own choreographer and a versatile and award-winning stage performer. Since his debut as a choreographer in 1994, he has created performances at a wide range of scenes at home and abroad – within dance, theater and opera. Jo Strømgren Kompani is one of Norway’s largest cultural exports. Since the inception in 1998, they have created 150 productions and toured in over 50 countries.
The performance is a co-production between Jo Strømgren Kompani and FringeArts.
Premiere is at June 21 at 19:30.
© NTB / The Norwegian Opera / Norway Today