The Road to Damascus

The Road to Damascus by The National Theatre won some of the most central theatre awards of 2006.

Øystein Røger won The Hedda Award in the best leading actor category for the role of The Unknown, whereas Jurate Paulekaite got the Hedda Award in the best visual design category.

The Hedda Jury gave the following reason for the award to Røger:

"This year's winner is a versatile actor, who has excelled in range ever since he started his career 20 years ago: He is a versatile character actor while mastering the genre of comedy, and - not least - he is one of our foremost interpreters of Jon Fosse's drama. During this season he has made his mark with a tour de force in which he expands his superior understanding of text with a brave, expressively physical expression.

The best leading actor award goes to Øystein Røger for his interpretation of the unknown in The Road to Damascus at The National Theatre."

The Hedda Jury gave the following reason for the award to Paulekaite:

"This year's winner has created a fascinating, mysterious stage design, completing and anchoring the dream-like text. The stage image is related to art installations and visual arts, while proving strong, sculptural qualities.With simple tools the stage designer shows a fairytale-like ability to conjure the most diverse fantasies. Almost without noticing we are transferred from a busy corner in a great city to a beach by the surging ocean, and the illusion hasn't been broken underway. A unique work of stage design.

This year's award goes to Jurate Paulekaite from Lithuania for the stage design for The Road to Damascus."

Øystein Røger also was awarded The Norwegian Critics' Award the same year.

Jon Refsdal Moe said the following, among other things, in his award ceremony speech on behalf of Norwegian Critics' Association:

"Rarely is our faith in the theatre met so well as in our meeting with the unknown in Oskaras Koršunovas' production of The Road to Damascus at The National Theatre the spring of 2006. Rarely are we given better reasons to keep visiting the theatre. Rarely are we met with such an uncompromised faith in the particular character of the theatre, and such an uncompromised demand to reciprocate this faith. For without this faith theatre would collapse. Just this uncompromised demand for faith, from the actor as well as the spectator, is what makes the theatre the most vulnerable art form we have, but it also makes it the scene of some of the most beautiful, powerful moments we may experience. In art and in life. Rarely are we met with greater demands, and rarely do we find better reasons to renew this faith, than in the meeting with Øystein Røger's competent, confidence-awakening and let me use as strong a word as mesmerising acting in the role of the unknown."

The complete speech can be read at the webpage of Norwegian Critics' Association.

Sources:

The Hedda Award

The National Theatre

Norwegian Critics' Association, kritikerlaget.no, 29.09.2011, http://www.kritikerlaget.no/pages/nor/236-teaterkritikerprisen_200506_gis_til_oeystein_roeger