Borkman

Former bank manager John Gabriel Borkman has served a sentence for embezzlement. Humiliated and bitter, he and his wife Gunhild have isolated themselves on separate floors of their house, and have no contact with each other. Throughout this time of crisis, their son, Erhart, has been taken care of by Gunhild's twin sister, Ella Rentheim, whom John Gabriel once chose not to marry, as a trade-off for prestige and power. Now Ella is fatally ill, and has returned to adopt Erhart and give him her own name. Gunhild refuses – Erhart is the person who must rebuild the honour of the Borkman family. But John Gabriel has in his solitude made other plans for his son's future.

Leading German director Jan Bosse is known for developing an anarchistic joy in his productions, where the audience becomes an integral part of the performance. In this production of Henrik Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman, Amfiscenen is changed to a public space, where the audience is a part of the story.

In Bosse's version, the family drama is emphasized further. The sisters' fight for the aging man in the house has become a desperate and suffocating battle over the son, between three lonely and bitter characters in their 40s. The three have almost no contact with each other, but even so they struggle to let each other go. They place all their hopes in the next generation – that it can set straight what went wrong in their own lives.

Actors: Jan Sælid, Laila Goody, Marika Enstad, John Emil Jørgensrud and Marian Saastad Ottesen.

Director: Jan Bosse. Scenographer: Moritz Müller. Costume designer: Kathrin Plath. Composer and sound designer: Arno Kraehahn. Light designer: Norunn Standal. Make-up: Hege Ramstad. Dramatic advisors: Gabriella Bussacker/Olav Torbjørn Skare/Hege Randi Tørressen.