Our Power/Our Glory

At the website of The National Stage the following, among other things, is written about Our Power/Our Glory:

"Join us in going back to The National Stage in 1935. To the time when Nordahl Grieg was central to the beautiful house at Engen, and when police was called to calm tempers during the performance of Our Power and Our Glory. Join us in entering parts of Grieg's play, and the actions playing out around it.

Do not feel surprised if you are also suddenly taken back to our day, sitting in Nordnes, in the centre of Bergen of at Kalfaret. The auditorium will be divided into these parts of Bergen. Yes, when the director and playwright Tore Vagn Lid, the playwright Cecilie Løveid, the stage designer Olav Myrtvedt and the composer Glenn Erik Haugland grab hold of Nordahl Grieg's iconic, contemporary-critical masterpiece, we really will be given a theatre production putting Bergen, present and past, on the map.

Nordahl Grieg criticised his society sharply, and proved his artistic courage 80 years ago. In Our Power/Our Glory, Lid and Løveid explore the relation between Grieg's text, our day and the art of theatre. This production will be a must for people who are fond of Bergen, before and now. In addition, we meet an excellent team of musicians led by the jazz legend Per Jørgensen."

The world premiere of Nordahl Grieg's Our Power and Our Glory at The National Stage in 1935 was controversial. Parts of the board of the theatre tried to stop the production. The 2016 production, too, was subject to debate. Ship owner and former member of the DNS board, Johan Fredrik Odfjell objected to the way his grandfather, Fredrik Odfjell, was presented in Our Power/Our Glory. The National Stage accepted after his protest to remove one of several hundred images used in the performance, as it could be perceived as if the ship DS Ajax was owned by Odfjell when it sank. The fact is that another ship by the same name was torpedoed.

The Hedda Jury gave the following reason for the direction award to Tore Vagn Lid:

"This year's direction winner is a balance artist, with the ability to combine stylistic effects and formal elements from different planes of action and time epochs in one collective, coherent and complex expression, rich in information. He has proven a strong will to discuss complicated, many-sided issues in his production, and he does this again this year. This year's winner likes to call himself an auteur, and the term is apt. His theatre has character of gesamtkunstwerk, with a very conscious relationship to the source material as well as to the effects to express it through."

The Hedda Jury gave the following reason for the stage text award to Tore Vagn Lid and Cecilie Løveid:

"A classic play is a small world in itself, with its own language, its conventions and not least, the playwright's biography as a backdrop. This year's award goes to a unique collaboration project which uncomprimised and bravely contextualise the work of one of our greats. Through expansive research mixed with poetry and politics, they write up the story of his life, work and contemporary controversy. This way, they create new political theatre and not least, new art."

The Hedda Jury gave the following reason for the stage design/costume design award to Olav Myrtvedt:

"This year's best stage design/costume design not only excels in taking use of the full stage area, but also the auditorium, so that the room for action is expanded significantly, and the separation between the stage and the auditorium is dissolved. The audience, and not least its place in the auditorium, becomes an important element to the understanding and the experience. Through the use of large image projections in addition to costumes that are thoroughly appropriate for its time, this year's winner provides us with the image of an image, or, as the theatre calls it; a development or theatre as work in the dark room."

SOURCES:

The National Stage, dns.no, 19.01.2016,  http://www.dns.no/program/2016/vaar-aerevaar-makt/

Bergens Tidende, coverage of Odfjell's protest against the production, 21.04.16, http://web.retriever-info.com/services/webdocument?documentId=00858220160315241837143&serviceId=1&profiles=339824,300562,339816

Scenekunst.no, coverage of Odfjell's protest against the production, 21.04.16, http://www.scenekunst.no/pub/scenekunst/main/?aid=8346

The Hedda Award, heddaprisen.no, 12.06.2016, http://heddaprisen.no/pub/heddaprisen/main/?aid=1465

Import from the Scenekunst.no list of openings19.01.2016

Lillian Bikset, Fortettet framkalt (literally: Compressed developed), Dagbladet January 30 2016:

"The context has been expanded. The time period has been expanded. Biographical information about Nordahl Grieg and Gerd Egede Nissen has been added, as has other documentary information. Contexts that were general knowledge in 1935 are explained. At the same time the narrative has been made more efficient: The original text has been edited, compressed and given new chronology. Symbols have been changed with others. (...) The National Stage does the right thing in labelling Our Power/Our Glory a world premiere. The production stands as far more than a modernisation of Nordahl Grieg's play. Naturally, Our Power and Our Glory is the basis, but this is an expansion of consciousness as well as of form."

• The Hedda Award 2016 - Production of the year