The End of Eddy

Lillian Bikset, Et preg av ekthet (literally: A stroke of being real), Dagbladet, November 22 2015:

"In her entire career as a director Kjersti Horn has shown interest for being an outsider. The feeling of and the realities in being different than the others, to put oneself and to be put outside of a circle. The End of Eddy fits into this. The very autobiographical novel by Édouard Louis, born as Eddy Bellegueule, describes a difficult childhood and youth as a gay victim of harassment. (...) The performance has the characteristic of a memory carousel, a loosely structured flow of thoughts in which stories and reflections from the time in the village are collected in a seemingly unplanned, non-prioritised structure. The expression is not polished, it has a sought-for unruly immediacy, as if this was a spontaneous narrative, eager and sincere. As in the book, different style levels are mixed, in part belonging to Eddy back then, direct, simple, sometimes vulgar, sometimes childish, and Édouard now, more sophisticated in his vocabulary and characteristics of others."

Demian Vitanza, Gesten og den andres ansikt (literally: The gesture and the face of the other), Norsk Shakespeare- og teatertidsskrift, date unknown:

"Another central difference between the novel and the production lies in how the lines seem. It is an entirely different thing to quote what one's mother says, almost as objective truth, and to personify one's mother through the same spoken lines. The important thing here is that it isn't the actor Johnsen who switches between the role of Édouard Louis and his mother, but that the character of the narrator, Édouard Louis, enter the role of his own mother. In other words, Johnsen plays Louis who plays his mother. With this effect any affected distance disappears, and the story dives into some entirely central paradoxes: How can one get away from something that is part of oneself, but that one has never really been a part of? How can one love oneself if one despises one's origin? How can one at the same time love and detest the same people? (...) An attempt of reconciliation with the other, through becoming the other, to put on the face of the other. This way, Édouard Louis becomes his own mother, his own father, and his own abuser: The two boys in school who spit him in the face and hit him day in and day out. The actor's performance in this is not insignificant, and Emil Johnsen succeeds well."