A dream play
Torshovteatret mark the Ibsen Festival with the Swedish counterpart to Brand, put on paper by Ibsen’s admirer and bitter enemy.
Directed by Sofia Jupither
Agnes, daughter of the god Indra, has come down to earth to live as a human among humans. This is the only way she can really understand the conditions that shape our lives. Among the figures Agnes meets are the master glazier, the officer, the doorkeeper, the man who puts up posters, the lawyer and the blind man, who help her to reach her conclusion, which is also the mantra of the play: “humans are to be pitied.”
A Dream Play was written in 1901, ten years after August Strindberg had written “Farewell, Ibsen, the ideal of my youth!” in a letter. Ibsen (1828-1906) and Strindberg (1849-1912) were at one and the same time colleagues, rivals and bitter enemies. They never met, but inspired each other in a negative, though fruitful way. Strindberg loved Brand, but hated Ibsen’s later plays. The novel Married (Giftas) was written in response to A Dolls’ House. Ibsen, on the other hand, had a portrait of Strindberg hanging over his writing desk, so that “that mad person” could stare at him as he worked.
A dream Play was one of Strindberg’s last and most important plays, and holds the same position in Swedish cultural identity as Ibsen’s Brand and Peer Gynt in Norwegian identity. Sofia Jupither, coming from Sweden, found this play a natural choice for the Torshov theatre and the Ibsen Festival. With A Dream Play she is also returning “home” to Strindberg after the Ibsen productions of The Wild Duck and A Dolls’ House.
At the National Theatre, Sofia Jupither has attracted considerable attention with Jon Fosse’s Sleep (Svevn) and Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie on the Amfi scene. After that she should be well prepared to follow up on the brilliant spring season at the Torshov theatre, where both Verdiløse menn and Volpone were highly acclaimed by the critics.
Cast: Birgitte Larsen (daughter of the god Indra /Agnes), Monna Tandberg (the doorkeeper a.o.), Andrea Bræin Hovig, Per Tofte, Kim Sørensen, Kim Haugen (the officer), Henrik Rafaelsen (the Lawyer) and Nicolai Cleve Broch (the poet). Directed by Sofia Jupither. Set design by Erlend Birkeland. Costume design by Ellen Ystehede. Wigs and make-up by Annikka N. Andersen. Dramaturg: Olav Torbjørn Skare.