Cora og friheten* (Cora and freedom)

At the website of Nord-Trøndelag Theatre the following, among other things, is written about Cora og friheten* (Cora and freedom):

"Can one combine the longing for an authentic life with the need for love?

In Cora Sandel's well-known novel trilogy we meet young Alberte (in most English translations: Alberta) who tries to find herself as a human and an artist, but who is met with hindrances and the lack of freedom from her surroundings. She is torn between her roles as a mother, a girlfriend, an artist and a woman.

Cora Sandel's real name was Sara Fabricius, and the trajectory of her life was in many ways the same as the novel character Alberte's.

In Cora og friheten, Cora, Sara and Alberte confront one another. They are ruthlessly hard to one another, and need to stand up for the choices they have made. Issues regarding human freedom string the bow through the action.

The play brings us along on an intense and exciting journey across fiction and lived life. This is recently written drama penned by the writer Jorun Thørring, who is known for the crime novels The Glass Dolls, The Tarantula and Dark Season.

The production is co-produced with Trøndelag Theatre and is supported by the freedom of expression foundation Fritt Ord."

SOURCES:

Nord-Trøndelag Theatre, 01.06.2016, http://www.nordtrondelagteater.no/forestillinger/cora-og-friheten

Import from the Scenekunst.no list of openings 16.02.2016

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

Lillian Bikset, Cora og friheten er diskusjonsteater om kvinnelivet mellom hverdagskrav og kunstnerkall (literally: Cora og friheten* (Cora and freedom) is discussion theatre about the demands of daily life, and the artist s calling), Dagbladet April 18 2016:

"Cora Sandel, Sara Fabricius and Alberte (Alberta) Selmer meet in Cora og friheten: A writer, the person she was prior to choosing her pseudonym and her partly autobiographical novel character. Are they the same person in different phases? Cora insists the answer is no. Alberte wonders and accuses. Sara becomes the link. The spectator may wonder how much of her lives in Alberte, and how much of her Cora has kept in herself. (...) Cora og friheten is a theatre production about the memory's and the interpretation's lack of reliability. But mostly it is about female life between the demands of daily life and the artist's calling. About not mastering the balance between living a life with other people and the freedom to create for one's own sake. This is a discussion we know from Ibsen, as well as from Knausgård. Yet, and naturally, the source material that is given the most place, is made up of the novels about Alberte. Cora og friheten is about a woman who analyses herself, and is at the same time a text that analyses itself. Parts of what is expressed would have been better served by being left as subtext."

Amund Grimstad, Marionetten Alberte (literally: Alberte the marionette), Klassekampen April 19 2016:

"Sara (Wenche Strømdahl), Cora (Liv Hege Nylund) and Alberte (Janne Kokkin) interact with each other onstage, comment, expand, question and confront in a line of action that goes relatively seamless back and forth in time. It becomes interesting metatheatre when Alberte already as it starts rebels against the writer who let her suffer in Paris for fifteen years. This is a good effect, and a promising opening. The conversations and meetings between the three women, who may be alter egos more than they are different persons, are to a large degree about the idea of freedom, and in this context, Alberte becomes the most interesting one because she, as opposed to the two others, has no free will of her own. Likely, the play also examines to which degree Cora and Sara had much freedom, but this is not as consummated."

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