My Struggle

At the webpage of The Norwegian Touring Theatre the following, among other things, is written about My Struggle:

"My Struggle is the literary sensation of a decade. With it Karl Ove Knausgård took a major, book-reading audience by storm, even far beyond the borders of Norway. The novel series is about his own life, the world he grew up in, his family, friends, all the choices that made him into the one he became and is. With his uncompromising urge to understand, and to live a decent, true life, Knausgård names a Norwegian contemporaneity we all belong within. He writes so unconcealed and openhearted we all feel hit. His struggle becomes our struggle.

Now the story has been recreated for the stage, in a very successful adaptation by the Norwegian director Ole Anders Tandberg. My Struggle had its world premiere at Stockholm City Theatre in 2015, to cheering reviews, extra performances and a broadcast on Swedish TV. The six-volume novel of 3622 pages has become two and a half hours of critically acclaimed theatre.

- Knausgård writes as if his life depended on it. Brutally and honest. To the recognition of all. It is the content, not the success, that has the audience involved, says Ole Anders Tandberg. He now stages the theatre version of My Struggle in Norway with Norwegian actors onstage."

SOURCES:

The Norwegian Touring Theatre, www.riksteatret.no, 25.05.2016, http://riksteatret.no/repertoar/min-kamp/

The Scenekunst.no list of openings 25.05.2016

Lillian Bikset, Selvsentrert allment (Literally: Self-centred collective), Dagbladet, August 30 2016:

"Ingjerd Egeberg, Øystein Røger, Agnes Kittelsen and Christian Rübeck are all him, the I of the books. The subjectivity of the writer is not dampened by the fact that his voice is carried by four. Even when they interact, it is clear that only one self is speaking. Even when the actors emulate others, they are others as seen through him. The language belongs to Karl Ove Knausgård, the singular text passages are his, a selection from the book series, but the structure belongs to Ole Anders Tandberg, a weave or a mosaic, across chronology and themes. (...) The theatre production's choice of formal effects enlarges and enforces, and whether the texts were written with self-deprecation or not, they get a character of self-depreciation here. The overexcited self-criticism, the self-hatred and self-pity is alienated and made humorous. Knausgård's characteristic mix of everyday existentialism and moaning, his ambitions and dreams are given a tone of dry wit."

Julie Rognved Amundsen, - Jeg lever et forferdelig liv (literally: I live a terrible life), Scenekunst.no, September 13 2016:

"To make a literary work of this size into a theatre production lasting for two hours and twenty minutes, is first and foremost an exercise in dramaturgy. (...) There are four actors onstage who all play Karl Ove Knausgård. This effect is interesting and in a way led to the possibility to discuss Karl Ove Knausgård as a character. For when he writes the novel work about his own life, this is what I experience happens: His person disappears into the work and becomes a character in a novel. With four actors, the interpretation of the character becomes deeper and this even more separated from the person of Karl Ove Knausgård, who sits somewhere in the south of Sweden and exists entirely outside of the novel. For the interesting thing with this character is not in his life, but in the literary project. The four actors Ingjerd Egeberg, Agnes Kittelsen, Øystein Røger and Christian Rubeck lift Knausgård out of Knausgård as a novel and a human being."