Repertoire 11-12
A diverse program on three stages
The Big Stage
The Wizard of Oz
This all-time musical classic is the story of a farm girl, Dorothy. The Wizard of Oz follows the farm girl, Dorothy, as she is transported from Kansas to the wonderland of Oz.
In order to go back to home, Dorothy needs the aid of a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, a Cowardly Lion and her dog Toto! Wizard of Oz features heart touching musical numbers from the Oscar Winning movie, which includes Somewhere over the Rainbow, Follow The Yellow Brick Road, If I Only Had a Heart and We're Off to See the Wizard.
Premiere: 17. September 2011
Author: Frank Baum
Music: Harold Arlen
Songtexts: E.Y. Harburg
Director: Bergur Þór Ingólfsson
Information on the production in Icelandic
The Cherry Orchard
Set at the very start of the twentieth century, The Cherry Orchard captures a poignant moment in Russia's history as the country rolls inexorably towards 1917. Ranyevskaya returns more or less bankrupt after ten years abroad. Luxuriating in her fading moneyed world and regardless of the increasingly hostile forces outside, she and her brother snub the lucrative scheme of Lopakhin, a peasant turned entrepreneur, to save the family estate. In so doing, they put up their lives to auction and seal the fate of the beloved orchard.
Premiere: 28. October 2011
Author: Anton Chekhov
Director: Hilmir Snær Guðnason
Information on the production in Icelandic
Nei, ráðherra! (Out of Order)
This sidesplitting comedy is forged by Ray Cooney, the King of Farce. He is well-known to Icelanders and the comedies Run for your Wife, Two into One and Funny Money have all enjoyed popularity in this country.
Nei, ráðherra received the sought-after Olivier Award as the best comedy in Britain when the play premiered. It has been an international success but this is the first time it has made it on to an Icelandic stage.
Author: Ray Cooney
Director: Magnús Geir Þórðarson
Fanny & Alexander
Christmas is being celebrated by the large, colourful and theatre-mad Ekdahl family, headed by Helena. Her oldest son, the good-natured Oscar, and his wife, the beautiful Emilie, are parents to Fanny and Alexander. During a rehearsal at their little home-grown theatre, Oscar falls to the ground and dies. The death of their father changes everything in the children's universe. Emilie is seduced by the charms of strict bishop Edvard Vergerus and marries him, and the new family moves to the prison-like bishop's palace. With brutal zeal, Vergerus takes control of the children's upbringing and Alexander in particular suffers under the bishop's iron hand of religion. Emilie needs help from her family and most of all from the old pawnbroker Isak.
Bergman's 1982 film Fanny and Alexander is a tribute to the theatre, to the imagination, and not least to the child at the heart of us all. The portrayal of the lively Ekdahl family is a cornucopia of fantastical characters and situations. And underlying it all is Shakespeare's story of Prince Hamlet, whose loss of his father incites him to revenge by his ghost.
Premiere: 29. December 2011
Author: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Sefán Baldursson
Information on the production in Icelandic
Hótel Volkswagen
Hótel Volkswagen is a farcical play by the Icelandic comedian, actor and most recently mayor of Reykjavík, Jón Gnarr. Siggi is a 10 year old boy but a lady in her thirties, Svenni the receptionist is an optimistic nihilist, Paul is a British gentleman but a woman with no ovaries and Ludwig Herman Finkelstein is a chummy Nazi nostalgic for the past. We observe the pitiful guests of Hótel Volkswagen where everything can happen and everyone has a dubious past – even little Siggi.
Jón Gnarr has for many years been one of the foremost comedians of the country who in later years has turned to writing and film acting. He was in-house writer at the Borgarleikhús in 2010 and Hótel Volkswagen is the result of his time here. Jón Gnarr is now the mayor of Reykjavík.
Premiere: 9. March 2012
Author: Jón Gnarr
Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
Information on the production in Icelandic
The New Stage
Fólkið í kjallaranum (The People in The Basement)
Fólkið í kjallaranum is a powerful, bitter-sweet story and at the same time a reckoning with both the 1968-generation and traditional ideas about life. The play is based on Auður Jónsdóttir´s book which received the Icelandic Literature Award in 2004. The book has since been translated into several languages and received rave reviews the world over.
Author: Auður Jónsdóttir
Dramatisation: Ólafur Egill Egilsson
Director: Kristín Eysteinsdóttir
The Golden Dragon
A tragicomic tale of globalisation set in your local takeaway. Five actors play a huge cast of characters - a Chinese migrant with toothache, a woman in a red dress, the man from the shop next door, two air-stewardesses plus a cricket and some ants - in a deconstructed soap opera that moves everywhere and nowhere. Charting a journey from far-off China to just around the corner and back again, The Golden Dragon reveals what really goes into that bowl of hot and sour soup.The Golden Dragon is a funny and theatrical fable of modern life and migration.
Premiere: 5. November 2011
Author: Roland Schimmelpfennig
Director: Kristín Eysteinsdóttir
Information on the production in Icelandic
Scorched
When Nawal Marwan dies, she leaves letters for her twins, Janine and Simon; one to be delivered to their brother and one to their father... and the mystery begins. They both thought their father was dead and never knew of a brother. The letters plunge them into the maelstrom of their war ravaged family history. Scourced is a time twisting epic about the human fall-out from civil war and the power of forgiveness. Funny, heart-breaking and totally engaging, this is storytelling at its powerful best.
Premiere: 27. January 2012
Author: Wajdi Mouawad
Director: Jón Páll Eyjólfsson
Information on the production in Icelandic
Reply to Helga´s Letter
Reply to Helga's Letter is an epistolary love story, told in lucid, unaffected prose that belies the churning emotions lurking beneath its surface. It's the story of a life that never came to pass: An old farmer writes a long letter to his old flame, relating how they met, fell in love and ultimately parted ways.
“The old farmer writes a number of letters,” Bergsveinn says, “but they all end up in the same pile. He never sends them. The original letter from Helga, the one he is replying to, must be ancient. But just as cognitive psychology has revealed to us, emotions – or emotionally charged perceptions and thoughts – are what sticks most tenaciously in our memories. Over time, all other abstractions fade from us. That's why I think they were right back in medieval times – we really do think with our hearts.
“Every day, we are inundated with Hollywood love stories that leave everything visible on the surface. I think that in real life, the “repressed” love story, the love story that is never allowed to breach the surface, is just as common. However, it's more of an untilled field, and it makes us wonder if the actual urge to love isn't mixed with wishful thinking or self-flagellation. A love story told from within required a first-person, subjective narrative, and the epistolary form was a good way to represent the closeness between the lovers.”
Premiere: 21. April 2012
Author Bergsveinn Birgisson
Dramatisation: Ólafur Egill Egilsson
Director: Kristín Eysteinsdóttir
Information on the production in Icelandic
Taking Care of Baby
Taking Care of Baby tackles the complex case of Donna McAuliffe, a young mother convicted of the murder of her two infant children. In a series of probing interviews the people in this extraordinary story, including Donna herself and her bewildered mother Lynn, reveal how they may have harmed those they sought to protect.
Author: Dennis Kelly
Director: Jón Páll Eyjólfsson
The Small Stage
Zombíljóðin (The Zombie Poems)
Never before have we received so much information about the grief of others. But do we really see each other? Do we feel less for others or have we sacrificed our humanity for an existence without pain? In this piece, some of the most morbid events of our times are retold and we face how society deals with pain caused by the actions of human beings.
The performances of the trio Mindgroup have attracted attention here and abroad and previous performances (Þú ert hér (You are here) and Góðir Íslendingar (Dear Icelanders)) have travelled to Berlin and to the theatre biennal in Wiesbaden.
Authors and directors: Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Hallur Ingólfsson, Jón Atli Jónasson, Jón Páll Eyjólfsson
Premiere: 9. September 2011
Information on the production in Icelandic
Gói og ævintýrin (Gói And the Adventures)
Gói opens wide the doors of the theatre for the whole nation, young and old, and journeys into the magical world of adventure. On his travels he uses singing and dancing and appears in various guises in the spirit of amazing tales.
The first adventure will be Eldfærin [The Tinderbox] by Hans Christian Andersen. All the characters will appear vividly; the witch, the princess, the villagers and last but not least, the three dogs with the enormous eyes. Theatrical fun for the whole family.
Another adventure undertaken by Gói is Baunagrasið. The giant, the old lady, the beautiful rich girl, the harp that plays itself, the hen that lays golden eggs and all the villagers show up for a turn on the stage.
Author: Guðjón Davíð Karlsson
Premiere: 11. February 2012
Afinn (The Grandfather)
What are grandfathers like these days? They are in their prime, in a good position, have raised their children and can finally enjoy a life of leisure. One of the nation´s best loved actors, Sigurður Sigurjónsson, appears here in a brand new Icelandic comedy. Afinn is warm with a big heart.
Author: Bjarni Haukur Þórsson
Director: Bjarni Haukur Þórsson
Axlar-Björn
In Axlar-Björn, Vesturport tackles the story of one of the most chilling murderer in Icelandic history. Axlar-Björn murdered eighteen people before he was finally captured and he and his wife, Steinunn, sentenced to death in 1596. Axlar-Björn relates the story of this macabre murderer but also throws up classic questions about the derangement that leads to such terrible deeds.
Björn Hlynur Haraldsson has received praise both as author and director for e.g. the dramatization of Faust with his partners in Vesturport. Kjartan Sveinsson from Sigurrós draws out the horror in music and soundscape.
Premiere: 19. January 2012
Author and director: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson
Information on the production in Icelandic
Jesús litli (Little Jesus)
An adventurous adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew about the birth and early life of Jesus, as told by clowns.
Following the success of The Seven Deadly Sins (see above), the four clowns shape-shifted and now happily narrate the story of Jesus Christ, his birth and early life. This promises to be a heart-warming, revelatory, and strikingly original performance.
Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
Premiere: November 2009
Information on the production in Icelandic
Tengdó (The in-laws)
“Only white men, preferably of Nordic extraction, may make up the troops arriving to the country, so as to keep to a minimum the risk posed to the Icelandic race by the army.” From the Government of Iceland, 1941.
Documentary theatre where the personal histories of the artists in the theatre company CommonNonsense are delved into. The focus is the decade-long search of “the situation child” for its father but at the same time Icelandic society then and now is viewed with a critical eye.
Premiere: 29. March 2012
Authors: CommonNonsense
Directors: CommonNonsense
Information on the production in Icelandic
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot exploded on to the London stage 50 years ago, it shocked as many people as it delighted. There had never been a play like it; two men clowning around, joking and arguing, repeating themselves, as they wait through one day and then another, waiting for the mysterious Godot. The play centres on the surreal and with Beckett's pathos, humour and poetry, the text has been frequently studied over the years with importance attached to the imagery of the play and the themes of humanity, exploitation, dependency and compassion. Waiting for Godot is accepted as one of the most significant plays of the 20th century.
Premiere: 27. April 2012
Author: Samuel beckett
Director: Stefán Jónsson
Information on the production in Icelandic
Nóttin nærist á deginum (The night is nourished by the day)
A married couple in their forties is destitute after the financial collapse. They live in a half-finished villa with a basement flat intended for their daughter and her husband to-be when they come home from their studies abroad. But nobody is on their way home to Iceland. In an attempt to move on with their lives, the couple decides to decorate the flat and rent it out. But things do not turn out quite as intended.
Premiere: 10. May 2012
Author and director: Jón Atli Jónasson
Information on the production in Icelandic