Fire begravelser og ett bryllup* (Four funerals and a wedding)

At the website of Ibsen Theatre the following, among other things, is written about Fire begravelser og ett bryllup* (Four funerals and a wedding):

"Fire begravelser og ett bryllup is the story about the life of a man called Morten Joachim, and it is performed by Morten Joachim himself.
It is a strong, moving and surprisingly funny story about growing up with drug-addicts as parents, and a drug-addict brother.

Morten Joachim is now a rising star as a theatre director (he directed Around the World in Eighty Days for Ibsen Theatre), so his story leaves the audience filled with hope - and with the belief that there is a way out, even though the basis is the worst that can be."

SOURCES:

Ibsen Theatre, www.teateribsen.no 31.05.2016, http://www.teateribsen.no/index.php?page_id=3574

Import from the Scenekunst.no list of openings, 10.02.2016

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

Lillian Bikset, Fire begravelser og ett bryllup er en sterk og modig fortelling om død og overlevelse (literally: Fire begravelser og ett bryllup* (Four funerals and a wedding) is a strong and brave story about death and survival), Dagbladet April 9:

"It is a nuanced narrative, with the hard and difficult, the insightful and the exploring, the rough surviver's humour, sharp observation/observational abilities and down-to-earth psychologisationput together. The episodes chosen are precise and tell a lot. The emotionally close is balanced towards the analythically revealing. Auto-therapy? No, Morten Joachim and his process are past the point where that would have been the aim. The story belongs to the child who got over the difficulties despite it all, but the reflections belong to the adult. His treatment of if has long ago given him insight. He has let his experiences mature before sharing them, and the spectator is the one to become wiser. Many will be just that. Fire begravelser... is a story about the complexity in the relationship between the addict and the people close to the addict. Mourning and anger. Longing and relief. Regrets and love. Opposition and guilt. The feeling of not being sufficient in the eyes of the other. The need to be seen and loved. Morten Joachim understands and explains. He forgives, but he doesn't excuse. He also share admittances about his own faults, faults it must pain him to tell about. The tears falling during seem real, but they do not stop him from continuing the story."

Amund Grimstad, Innsikt og refleksjon (literally: Insight and reflection), Klassekampen April 11 2016:

"Morten Joachim is a director and playwright. He is not an actor. Yet he stands alone onstage in the role of his life. He plays himself. Joachim spent the first weeks of his life in an incubator due to heroin abstinence. He grew up with his maternal grandmother, whereas his biological father was in prison and his mother and stepfather drug addicts. As an adult, still relatively young, he experienced in the span of a few years that his three year younger brother died due to an overdose, before he lost both his biological parents and his stepfather. Joachim has had a rather special upbringing, and now he has written and adapted his own story, and presents it as intense and moving storytelling theatre. Wise, reflected, and gratifyingly also with a lot of humour."

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