Tuesday 24 March 2009

Day 5 - (17/03/09) - Gothenburg




With the sun shining, my voice on the mend, and my digestive system returning to normal, Anna jokes that the world is a Truman Show directly connected to my health.  

We get the boat across the river to Backa Theatre.  Anna Vnuk, who found fame in Sweden with 'Anna Vnuk Stages Cats', a show that became more about her painful divorce than the Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical, has choreographed a new play for children called 'Alla Ar Skadade', loosely translated to 'Everybody Hurts' in English.

All my prejudices against dance theatre are blown away.  The use of actors rather than dancers (except for one professional dancer responsible for a particularly frenetic routine) results in deeply moving and poignant vignettes between characters.  The unspoken love an overweight porter holds for the chief doctor, which he can only express through dance, is particularly poignant.  
The young, schools audience are impressively quiet - they're really engaged in the story and relationships.  

The Backa experience is immersive - the whole space, right from the foyer onwards, has been transformed into a hospital, and all of the staff are kitted out in scrubs and uniforms.  The attention to detail is incredible.

We're given a tour by Lasse Waringer, one of the longest-standing members of the company, who played the jester in Everybody Hurts.  This is a new, bright, well-equipped space.  The larger stage is being prepared for an ambitious project, made up of three versions of 'Crime and Punishment' for different age groups, from young kids to teenagers.  The trilogy was a huge success when it was first staged, and is now returning for a second run.

Afterwards, we have lunch with Mattias Andersson, the artistic director of Backa.  He's also a successful playwright whose plays have  been performed all over Sweden, and also internationally.  He's adapted Crime and Punishment for the older, teenage audience, for instance.  Mattias is very young for an artistic director, and is clearly finding Backa the ideal space for ambitious and innovative work.

Afterwards, Anna takes me around the hip Haga area of Gothenburg.  In 1968 this was a site for socialist resistance and demonstration, but it's now studenty, bohemian, and very expensive, apparently.  It feels a bit like the Lanes in Brighton.  We talk about the differences between Swedish and British theatre - the status of writers, the writer's relationship with directors, and attitudes towards the text.  Then, time for a theatrical experience of a different kind.  Anna has an appointment to view a flat that she and her boyfriend are thinking about buying, and I accompany her.  'Home staging' is a big deal in Sweden, with companies devoted to transforming any flat or house into a show home - personal items go into storage and idyllic settings are created, complete with plates of plastic fruit and muffins, to suggest the lifestyle you could enjoy should you be lucky enough to live here.  

In the evening, we visit the State Theatre to see Hunger, devised by a company called Mindgroup.  This is the only play aimed at adults that I see in Gothenburg, and it's my least favourite.  It's post-modern and self-reflexive, with actors breaking in and out of character to describe Gothenburg's politically active history, and there's also a bit of a lecture about how the kids just don't protest like they used to.  I couldn't help feeling a little patronised and told off by this easy position, but it had a couple of laughs, e.g. when one actor describes her real-life experience of growing up in a commune with her hippy parents in the 70s.  The same actor's transformation into an empty-eyed 'angel of debt' when her fictional character has maxed out one too many credit cards is also wonderfully done.

In the evening, there's time to relax over a couple of beers with Anna and Hasse.  I've been lucky to have such welcoming, generous and fun hosts - thanks!


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