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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
RE-CREATIONS: IBSEN. AN
INTERNATIONAL THEATRICAL
PROJECT
Project realisation
January 2009
TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
Contents
About Teatr Nowy Association
3
Project description
4
Project partners
5
Project realization
Contact
6-15
16
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
ABOUT TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
Aims
Teatr Nowy is a young cultural institution acting in order to promote modern drama, activate
artistic milieus and create chances of professional debut for young artists. Therefore, it regularly co-operates with artists and lecturers of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School in Krakow (Państwowa WyŜsza Szkoła Teatralna im. Ludwika Solskiego w Krakowie) and the
Jagiellonian University, supporting the program activity of the Theatre.
Activity
In the season of 2007/2008, the Teatr Nowy Association realized the following projects:
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Private / Political in Teatr Nowy - series of meetings with the modern drama
Europe: Art without borders - interdisciplinary overview of the arts from Poland and Germany, international theatrical project, within the frameworks of which three performances of young German theatres were presented in Krakow.
Young Summer Stage - 3rd Edition - overview of performances of Teatr Nowy that
guarantees access to the theatre also during summer holidays;
Sunrise at Voldi - premiere of a diploma performance of Lauma Balode, a Latvian director
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
RE-CREATIONS: IBSEN. AN INTERNATIONAL
THEATRICAL PROJECT
Project description
The international project ‘Re-Creations: Ibsen’ regards Polish - Norwegian co-operation in
the field of theatre and drama. The realization involves artistic, educational and organizational activities in Poland (Teatr Nowy, the Jagiellonian University, the Ludwik Solski State
Theatre School in Krakow) and Norway (co-operation with the Norwegian partner, Visjoner
Teater).
The basic aim of the project is a complex analysis of drama works by Henrik Ibsen, perceived through the prism of the influence that they had on the contemporary strategies of
writing for theatrical purposes. Ibsen is therefore not only a leitmotiv of the project but, most
of all, the starting point for observation of changes that the modern drama and theatre undergo. That is why, within the frameworks of the project, both the Polish and the Norwegian
ways of staging Ibsen’s dramas (‘Little Eyolf’, ‘A Doll’s House’) will be juxtaposed with modern texts of authors who refer directly to these works (Dea Loher, Jon Fosse). A possibility of
international co-operation and exchange of experiences among Polish and Norwegian artists,
co-operation of young Polish artists (Maria Spiss, Iga Gancarczyk, Magda Stojowska, Maciej
Podstawny) with respectable and experienced Norwegian ones (Juni Dahr, Jon Fosse, Jon
Tombre) should significantly influence popularization of Norwegian theatre in Poland and
Polish one in Norway, becoming the beginning of both institutional and super-institutional cooperation in the field of theatre. It is also supposed to constitute an impulse for a new wave
of mutual interest in the theatre and drama of both countries. The innovative character of the
project, that is the attempts of non-canonical interpretation of Henrik Ibsen’s works, should
influence an increase in interest in his literary output in Poland.
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
PROJECT PARTNERS
TStiftelse: Visjoner Teater
The partnership of the Norwegian Visjoner Teater, an institution managed by an eminent
contemporary Norwegian actress, Juni Dahr, will provide support not only of substantial character (program co-operation and consultations at all stages of project preparation and realization, consultations at the choice of Norwegian performances to be presented in Poland,
consultations at the choice of Norwegian artists who will conduct workshops, consultations at
establishment of the academic session program) but also of organizational character
(establishment of relations with the Norwegian project participants, correspondence and organization of their arrival to Poland).
The partner, within the frameworks of the project, will present in Poland two performances of
staging works by Ibsen (one, being an effect of the partnership agreement, the other chosen
at the selection stage) and will conduct one of the theatre workshops.
Moreover, the Norwegian partner is entirely in charge of organization and promotion of a
staging presented in Norway, produced within the frameworks of the project.
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
PROJECT REALIZATION
Henrik Ibsen, Little Eyolf
Private views: 16th, 17th January 2009, 8:15 p.m.
Premiere: 18th January, 8:15 p.m.
translation: Aleksandra Sawicka
directed by: Maria Spiss
dramaturgy: Tomasz Kireńczuk
set design: Joanna Braun
music: Karol Śmiałek
cast: RITA: Aldona Grochal
RAT-WIFE: Ewa Kolasińska
ASTA: Marta Konarska
ALLMERS: Tomasz Międzik
EYOLF: Andrzej Plata
BORGHEIM: Dariusz Starczewski
The drama’s plot takes place in a wilderness over a fjord where, isolated from the
world, Alfred Allmers lives with his wife Rita and Eyolf, their disabled son. In “Little Eyolf”, Ibsen eliminates not only all the traditional dramatic plot, but also the analysis of the past so
typical for his most popular texts, which lets the characters focus on the present situation.
Therefore, “Little Eyolf” is constructed mainly of consecutive, emotional talks. Their attractiveness is demonstrated by their diversity, whereas the theatrical potential is demonstrated by
the undertones concealed under the staffage of a perfectly composed dialogue.
Alfred Allmers is a writer who perfectly mastered the skill of expressing unbearably
long tirades although has not managed to write anything throughout his entire life. At the
same time, he has some internal strength that makes women dependent on him. By his marriage with Rita, he secured his affluent life, but also plunged into an unsuccessful relationship
which definitely destroyed a mythicized relationship with his step-sister Asta. Unaware of the
fact that she is not connected with Allmers with any blood relationship, Asta loves him as her
brother and conforms her entire life to him. In conversations of these three characters, the
person of disabled Eyolf appears all the time as an unwanted son that in the life of all characters constitutes only a recurring subject of afflictive talks. Consequently, when the boy, rejected by his own mother and not accepted by the father, dies engulfed by the waters surrounding the Allmers’ house, non of them notices that the son disappeared. The death of the
boy, linked by Ibsen with appearance of the Rat-Wife (known from Nordic parables) in the
Allmers’ house, does not bring purgation. Rita and Allmers, rationalizing the son’s disappearing, are looking only for a way to fill the emptiness that came into being.
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
Maria Spiss:
"In "Little Eyolf", I was fascinated by some contradiction inscribed in the drama. On the one hand, the drama is full of construction imperfections, most often resulting from the playwright’s habit to strive for linear presentation of events. At the same
time, these technical imperfections are not capable to question
the quality of amazing psychological portraits of the appearing
characters. The characters, isolated from the world, limit their
everyday life to permanent and mutual rubbing salt again into
the wounds that have just healed. While reading the drama, I
also had an impression that Ibsen, who actually mastered the
technique of writing psychological dramas, in “Little Eyolf”, being one of his last dramas, did not bother much for technical
issues but focused rather on portraits of these characters suspended between reality and dreams. And namely such ambiguity of the drama, juxtaposition of a sometimes irritating psychologization with the Norwegian folklore made “Little Eyolf”
seem to me particularly interesting and worth showing. Rita, Asta and Allmers are characters
who at first induce our resentment: they are conceited, egocentric, clumsy; they seem to be
deprived not only of a possibility, but also of any will to act. However, when one listens carefully to what they say to each other and how dramatically they seek for any sign of anybody’s
interest, it turns out that their clumsiness, the inability to be with someone results from their
immense loneliness that, as Alfred Allmers says in one scene, can be felt only on “the mountain-peaks and […] great waste places.” I wish to reflect in my staging some of the climate of
these huge waste places, filled with the feeling of loneliness.”
Photograph: Paweł Gąsior
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
PROJECT REALIZATION
RE-CREATIONS: IBSEN Festival
18th—26th April 2009
Krakow
18th April (Saturday)
Opening of the Festival RE-CREATIONS: IBSEN
„Ibsen’s Women” Henrik Ibsen, monodrama by Juni Dahr, Visjoner Teater
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Yes, but people might take into their heads that you were mad too, you see.
Henrik Ibsen, The Master Builder
“Cage an eagle and it will bite at the wires, be they of iron or of gold.” That sentence
said by Hjørdis, coming from the drama The Vikings at Helgeland, became for Juni Dahr the
starting point for her work – both dramaturgical work and acting – over the staging of Ibsen’s
Women. “In that sentence,” says Dahr in one of her interviews, “Ibsen asks provocatively
what freedom is. [...] Such striving for freedom, the conviction on influence of its lack, resulted in female characters in Ibsen’s dramas being unbelievable challenges for an actress.
Ibsen’s genius rests upon the fact that while summarizing his characters, he provokes us to
ask the ever-valid questions about the place of an individual in the contemporary world. The
élan, unbelievable energy, startling characters make Ibsen’s women possibly fascinating also
today.”
Ibsen’s Women. Put an Eagle in a Cage is a
monodrama prepared by Juni Dahr. After the premiere, the performance was showed on all continents; it was also awarded with plenty of prestigious
prizes both in Norway and abroad. Juni Dahr worked
on that performance during her visit in the United
States of America. At first, it was supposed to constitute a kind of an answer given in practice to questions asked often about the specificity of Ibsen’s dramas. Juni Dahr’s answer is a collage performance
composed of monologues of Ibsen’s female characters: Hilda (The Master Builder), Hedda Gabler
(Hedda Gabler), Pani Alving (Ghosts), Nora (A Doll’s
House), Ellida (The Sea Woman) and Hjørdis (The
Vikings at Helgeland).
Ibsen’s Women. Put an Eagle in a Cage
Directed and performed by: Juni Dahr, live music:
Chris Poole, lights directed by: Frank Tangen, performance was in the English language.
Photograph: Michał Lichtański
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
19th April (Sunday)
„Little Eyolf” Henrik Ibsen, directed by: Maria Spiss
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Yes, isn’t Michał
it curious
that we
Fotografie:
Lichtański
should grieve like this over a little stranger boy?
Henrik Ibsen, Little Eyolf, Act II
“Little Eyolf” is one of the
last dramas by Henrik Ibsen, a
work in fact hardly known in Poland. Since it was showed during
its private view in the City Theatre
in Krakow (1904), it was staged
only once more in Lvov (1906).
The performance prepared by
Maria Spiss was created on the
basis of a new translation from the
Norwegian original. The new
translation of the drama was put
out in 2009 in the series ‘Dramat
Współczesny’ (Pol. ‘Contemporary
Drama’) of the Panga Pank publishing house (together with the dramas “Das Letzte Feuer” by Dae Loher and “The girl on
the sofa” by Jon Fosse translated for the purposes of the “Re-Creations: Ibsen” festival).
Photographs: Michał Lichtański
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
19th April (Sunday)
„Ibsen’s Monologues” – acting workshops, conducted by: Juni Dahr
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Photograph:
Michał Lichtański
Within the frameworks of the Re-creations: Ibsen Project, Juni Dahr, an eminent Norwegian actress, often awarded for her roles in staging of dramas by Ibsen, conducted workshops on histrionic interpretation of Ibsen text dedicated to young actors. The aim of the
workshops was to search for new methods of work over histrionic interpretation of classical
texts.
The participants worked on scenes from A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler selected
by Juni Dahr.
20th April (Monday)
“The girl on the sofa" by Jon Fosse, directed by Maciej Podstawny, workshop view
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
„Ibsen between Cultures” – Ibsen workshops, conducted by Prof. Frode Helland
(Centre for European Studies, Oslo), Prof. Julie Holledge (Flinders University, Australia)
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Within the frameworks of the Ibsen between cultures project of the Center for Ibsen
Studies, Prof. Frode Helland (Head of the Centre for Ibsen Studies in Oslo) and Prof. Julie
Holledge (Flinders University, Australia) – eminent contemporary ibsenologists – conducted
workshops on theatrical interpretation of Ibsen’s text. The researchers from various countries
over the world participating in the project realization watched some ‘national’ ways of staging
of Ibsen’s texts, considering the influence of the specificity of national cultures on the local
traditions of performing works by Ibsen.
The workshop participants had a chance to acquaint themselves with staging of dramas by Ibsen unknown in Poland prepared by artists e.g. from China, Bangladesh and India.
During the workshops, also the ‘global’ character of Ibsen's works was discussed.
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
21st April (Tuesday)
„Ibsen: departures and returns” – academic conference
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
„A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, Visjoner Teater, Palace in Janowice
Still it was really tremendous fun sitting there working and earning money. It was almost like
being a man.
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
Tonje Gotscalksen, staging A Doll’s House, decided to observe Ibsen’s characters
peeping at them in their own, private space. A Doll’s House in Visjoner Teater is performed
in interiors of a true apartment to which Nora and her husband Torvald move in temporarily.
And namely such escape from the theatre, the display of Ibsen’s characters being in their
private space to the public view makes the popular text gain new dimension in the
performance of Visjoner Teater. Closed in a space to which they should have no access,
both spectators and the actors become witnesses and participants of a gradual disintegration
of the Hellmers’ world.
A Doll’s House of Visjoner Teater makes us
try to answer anew the question of what illusion
can mean today.
“Dagens Nyheter”
In Norway, “A Doll’s House” is performed in
rooms of Ibsen Museum. During the Re-Creations:
Ibsen Festival, the performance was showed in the
historical rooms of the Palace in Janowice.
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
Text adaptation: Juni Dahr and Tonje Gotscalksen,
directed by: Tonje Gotschalksen, production:
Marianne Roland, cast: Juni Dahr, Lars Øyno,
Terje Strømdahl, Kristin Kajander, Robert
Skjærstad.
Duration: 100 minutes,
Performance showed in the Norwegian language,
with Polish synopsis.
Photograph: Marcin Golec
Support: Arts Council Norway, OBOS and Norwegian Folkemuseum.
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
22nd April (Wednesday)
„A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, Visjoner Teater
Palace in Janowice
„Ibsen: departures and returns” – academic conference
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Ibsen: departures and returns
“It is so easy to soothe and smooth dramas by Ibsen (in reading, interpretation and
staging), it is easy to chose one of the possibilities to read offered by the text, closing the
way to all the other ones,” wrote Ewa Pastyga in her paper Ibsen’s eyes, or praise of astigmatism. And she added that “It is much more difficult to trace back gaps or let the texts go
out of stiff interpretation framework that we would like to push it into for the sake of our own
convenience and getting rid of all the trouble.” The aim of the conference Ibsen: departures
and returns is to find such ‘interpretation gaps’, which, expended and explored, will allow new
perception of plays by Ibsen, ‘soothed and smoothed’ by the critics and traditional staging.
Because the thing is not to acquaint Polish audience with his hardly known early and late
works, but most of all to put his works in the context of contemporary strategies of writing for
the theatre. Such a view, from today’s perspective, through the prism of texts by Elfride
Jelinek, Cecilie Loveid, Jon Fosse or Dea Loher, and confrontation of characters outlined by
Ibsen and dramatic situations with the requirements towards a theatre text challenged by
contemporary directors (Thomas Ostermaier, Agnieszka Olsten, Paweł Miśkiewicz) is to constitute the starting point to search an answer to the question why, despite the drama consistently departs from classical conventions and solutions, at the same time we can observe
also consistent return to dramas by Ibsen.
The conference was organized in co-operation with the Jagiellonian University Drama
Chair.
Photograph: Michał Lichtański
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
23rd April (Thursday)
„Litte Eyolf” by Henrik Ibsen, directed by Maria Spiss
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Polish and Norwegian histrionic workshops, conducted by a group from Visjoner Teater
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
24th April (Friday)
„Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen, Visjoner Teater, private view
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Hedda – close-ups is an attempt by the group of Visjoner Teater to find – by taking the
story depicted in Hedda Gabler out of a theatre setting – new qualities in that drama, one of
the most popular dramas by Ibsen. Most of all, we want to find space that will make it possible for actors to locate the relations included in the text in a new way. A staging escape from
theatre character towards the text and relations described therein, typical for Visjoner Teater,
is an attempt to bare the drama’s characters to show them not as icons of classical drama,
but as contemporary people who address us directly. Hedda’s story in Visjoner Teater’s adaptation becomes a kind of contemporary mystery play, revealing the fact that the drama, despite being subdued by the staging tradition, preserved its potential of inducing constant astonishment.”
Selected comments of the group
Hedda – close-ups, the latest performance by Visjoner Teater, during the Re-Creations: Ibsen festival were showed to the audience for the first time. The spectators participated in a
workshop view of three scenes of the created performance. Presentation of selected scenes was not
much of an open rehearsal but a confrontation with
the audience.
The performance was a part of Ibsen trilogy
prepared by Visjoner Teater, Ibsen in close-ups.
Hedda in close-ups, based on Hedda Gabler
by Henrik Ibsen,
Text adaptation: Juni Dahr and Tonje
Gotscalksen, directed by: Tonje Gotschalksen, production: Marianne Roland, cast: Juni Dahr,
Lars Øyno, Terje Strømdahl, Robert Skjærstad.
Performance played in the Norwegian language
with Polish synopsis, duration: 75 minutes
Support: Arts Council Norway
Photograph: Michał Lichtański
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
25th April (Saturday)
„Całopalenie” Dea Loher, directed by Iga Gańczarczyk – Polish private view
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
Meeting with Dea Loher
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
“Całopalenie (Holocaust) is a story about a community – maybe only a potential one,
maybe an unreal one – whose bind is a feeling of guilt related to a tragic death of an eightyear boy. «We are only putting the story together / piece by piece / Because we believe
that We can know more than each I separately» - speak the characters of the text by Loher. Only in that way, putting different testimonies into one, we can reconstruct the past
events in order to ask once again about their sense. The accident in which Edgar dies
launches an individual and group process of vivisection, looking for a cause of these tragic
events. [...] After the accident nothing is obvious. In the parallel and crossing threads, Dea
Loher mercilessly bares the effects of an accidental event in lives of all characters. Each of
them has their own version of events and there is only one true witness – the Stranger.”
Comment by Iga Gańczarczyk
In Całopalenie, just like in Little Eyolf by Ibsen, a child’s death is the beginning of a
series of events leading to slow but gradual destruction of the presented world. Both Loher
and Ibsen provoke their characters to a seemingly purifying cry, to intense search for sense
that could fill their lives after the
encountered loss. However, are Ibsen’s
and Loher’s characters, far from each
other by a hundred years, really that
similar? Całopalenie directed by Iga
Gańczarczyk is a Polish private view of the
latest drama by Dea Loher.
Dea Loher, Całopalenie, translation:
Dorota Sajewska, directed by: Iga
Gańczarczyk, adaptation and dramaturgy:
Magda Stojowska, Iga Gańczarczyk, set
design: Robert Rumas, cast: Iwona Budner, Dominika Knapik, Ewa Kolasińska,
Marta Ojrzyńska, Łukasz Byczek, Paweł
Kruszelnicki, Tomasz Nosinski, Paweł
Smagała
Photograph: Michał Lichtański
26th April (Sunday): Closing of the RE-CREATIONS: IBSEN Festival
“Całopalenie” Dea Loher, directed by Iga Gańczarczyk – Polish private view
Teatr Nowy, 21 Gazowa street, Krakow
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
Within the framework of the project there were two publications issued:
1. (con)texts: Ibsen, Fosse, Loher is the latest, 50th volume of the series Dramat
współczesny (Pol. Contemporary Drama) issued by the Panga Pink publishing house. The
volume is opened by a new translation of Little Eyolf by Aleksandra Sawicka, a late drama by
Henrik Ibsen that was not published in Poland since its first issue almost a hundred years
ago. Ibsen’s text is counterpointed by new texts published in Poland for the first time by Dea
Loher (Całopalenie (Holocaust), translation: Dorota Sajewska) and Jon Fosse (Dziewczyna
na kanapie (The girl on the sofa), translation: Ewa Partyga).
“Fosse and Dea Loher follow Ibsen, making his texts subject to private, subversive lecture, in
which the margins dominate the centre and the lent motifs start to live their own life, independent from the original […]. One could say that in such a way they both renew Ibsen’s gesture […] the gesture of writing born from reading, writing as a reading re-invention and recreation. Another thing they have in common with Ibsen is that they build their dramas by
creating dynamic threads of relations and juxtaposing different strategies of their autonarration. […] The volume composed of dramas by Ibsen, Loher and Fosse constitutes an invitation to a very individual lecture. The three texts create something like an Ibsen triangle –
some threads linking its corners are seen at the first sight, the other ones can emerge only
after asking new questions, that the readers pose to the texts. And, of course, not only the
work by Loher or Fosse shows a bit different image when juxtaposed against Ibsen’s art.
Also Little Eyolf may reveal in a completely new perspective, lit by the texts written over a
hundred years later. It is enough to ask proper questions.”
from the introduction by Ewa Partyga
2. Ibsen: departures and returns is the 40th volume of a series issued by the Jagiellonian
University Drama Chair and the Academic Library, Interpretacje Dramatu (Pol. Drama Interpretations). Books issued in that series present some multipronged analyses of the contemporary and traditional drama, both Polish and foreign. The authors of books issued within the
series are interested not only in texts for the theatre written in line with the traditional rules of
dramaticity and theatrality, but also all non-canonical views on theatre art, in other words the
ones that problemize the traditional relations between the text (word) and staging
(performance). The book Ibsen: departures and returns gathers papers written by the participants of an academic conference organized within the frameworks of the Re-creations: Ibsen. It is composed of three parts, the first one is dedicated to relations of staging of dramas
by Ibsen with the ways of translating them, the second part relates to the contemporary rewriting of dramas by Ibsen, and the third part is dedicated to the “other” dimension of his
texts, falling outside the traditional interpretation. The book will be published as edited by Mateusz Borowski and Małgorzata Sugiera.
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TEATR NOWY ASSOCIATION
CONTACT WITH ORGANIZERS
Teatr Nowy Association
21 Gazowa street
Kraków 31-060
[email protected]
www.teatrnowy.com.pl
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