Ekte kjærlighet* (True Love)

Ekte kjærlighet* (True Love). Freely based on Camilla Collett was a theatre production by Agder Theatre, produced in 2013, and loosely based on Camilla Collett's novel The District Governor's Daughters.

Tyra Tønnessen directed it and won The Hedda Award 2014 in the best direction category, for this production and for The Visit, directed for Trøndelag Theatre (2014).

The Hedda Jury gave the following reason:

"Good direction demands a clear idea. It demands a coherent concept. It demands a readable, unique and accessible performance expression for just this concept. The director has to grab hold of the material, knead it and shape it. Then the first reading rehearsal comes along, and the process needs to start over, for now as joint work. If the concept doesn't reach the actors, into them, it will never reach the audience.

This is no simple process. Friction creates heat. In the melting pot the rehearsal period may be the director's ideas are tested, at the same time as the play and the roles are handed over to the actors.

The recipient of this year's direction award demonstrates a strong will. Her productions document thorough and distinct work, control over the totality as well as the details, whether the direction is adjusted to the text or the text shaped according to the direction's idea.

This year the direction award is given to an instructor not for one, but two, works, which together prove the range of the director's ambitions and competence.

This year's best direction award goes to Tyra Tønnessen."

*Not yet translated into the English. The title within parentheses is the Norwegian title's literal meaning.