Theater, which was good

A few nights ago I went to Oslo's National Theater to see Büchner's Leonce og Lena (regi, Sebastian Hartmann) in Norwegian. At the end of the show, I didn't know which actor was Lena or Leonce. I didn't even know if those two characters even made it into this particular version of the play, which was developed by a production team from Berlin. Some of the tougher critics in the audience, namely, the Americans I was sitting next to, were unmoved by the performance, which consisted of -- I do grant you -- one too many stolen gimmicks from the Berlin Volksbühne productions, which have a style all their own. For instance, the people at the Volksbühne LOVE live projection. (Here, a video camera was planted in the sailboat's cabin so the actors can go under the boat and we still see them on the sails.)


But I'll tell you something. I can hear the same story twice and still think it's great. Stolen or not stolen, this production goes into my box of unforgettables. And I can't even tell you what on earth was going on.

In my favorite scene, two of the actors stand at opposite ends of the stage and strap on microphones that amplify and distort whatever their mouths are doing. You could eat a skittle with this get-up on and it would sound like you were crushing rock. They then reach into their pockets and pull out about three fake blood capsules each, stick them between lips & gums like huge wads of chew, and run at each other screaming bloody murder. They make horrifying (but funny) chewing and gagging sounds while LOUDLY munching on each other's necks and spitting out fake teeth, chins running with fake vampire blood.


And then just as suddenly they drag out an old, barely usable clunky smoke machine that covers the stage in smog, drop quickly to the floor and, made almost completely invisible by the smoke, slowly, slowly mime swimming back to the boat.



I went to an audition once where all the people auditioning were invited into the same room. For each of us, our one task was to walk out of the audition room, wait one minute, step back into the room, and then suddenly see all the auditioners and auditionees AS THOUGH WE'D NEVER SEEN THESE PEOPLE BEFORE IN OUR LIVES. It's very hard to do. Toward the beginning of Leonce og Lena the older male actor makes an entrance like this that I would never have imagined possible. He comes on stage. He's totally taken aback, shocked. He has to turn away. Then he's elated; he's so excited! Then he's overwhelmed; he starts to cry. It was worth every penny.


And at the very, very tail end of the piece, an actor you haven't seen at all yet for the 2 hours the production has been going on suddenly appears. He walks on in sweat pants and cheap looking angel wings and delivers a 5-minute mologue. And the actor had Down's syndrome. He played his part perfectly; he forgot nothing. An angel with Down's. I was almost in tears.