Borkman

At the website of The National Theatre, the following, among other things, is written about Borkman:

"Former bank manager John Gabriel Borkman has finished a sentence for embezzlement. Humiliated and bitter he and his wife Gunhild have locked themselves in, at each their floor of the house, and they don't want to see one another. Their son Erhart was taken care of by Gunhild's twin sister Ella Rentheim during the time of the crisis, a woman who John Gabriel once refused for the sake of position and power. Now the fatally ill Ella is back to take Erhart with her for good, and give him her name. Gunhild refuses - Erhart is who is to re-establish the honour in the Borkman family. But John Gabriel, too, has in his loneliness made plan for his son's future.

The leading German director Jan Bosse is known for developing an Anarchist joy in acting in his stage productions, in which the audience takes actively part in the performance. In this adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman the Amphi stage is made into a public place, in which the audience is part of the action.

In Bosse's version the family drama gets even more of an edge. The sisters' rivalry for the aging man in the house has become the desperate, strangling struggle between three lonely bitter fortysomethings for the son. The three has almost given up any contact with one another, and yet they are not able to let go. All their hope they put in the next generation's ability to make up for the failures in their own lives."

SOURCE:

The National Theatre, 26.04.16, www.nationaltheatret.no, http://www.nationaltheatret.no/?module=Articles&action=Article.publicOpen&id=5935