Man Equals Man

In Man Equals Man Tore Vagn Lid/Transiteatret-Bergen explored how the individual’s identity and emotional life could be constructed and deconstructed under the pressure from the modern media industry.

In a virtuoso and humorous fable the warehouse worker Galy Gay is one morning assigned an easily accomplished mission: Ordered by his wife he goes to buy a fish. Surrounding him – in the magical Asia – a large war is nearing.

A group of soldiers not only has broken into a local temple, the fourth man of the band is lost after the crime. To avoid getting arrested and executed, they have to hurry to replace the lost man with another. Such is Galy Gay entangled in a social experiment where the man who left in the morning to buy a fish is by the evening transformed into the efficient warrior Jeriah Jip.

Man Equals Manwon The Hedda Award 2008 in the category of theatre project of the year.

The Hedda Jury gave the following reason:

"The production of the year, obviously, is to be of high artistic quality. But the project is also to be an event in its own effect. It is to be of current interest, and to be expressed originally. The production of the year satisfies all these demands, and the director has managed to unite the classic professionalism of the theatre institutions with the independent companies' modernity and innovation.

The result is a virtuoso stage game in which an exuberantly comical sound image, an imagination-triggering installation, excellent use of video and powerful acting join forces in shaking to pieces the classic theatre's illusion of reality.

The theatre project of the year is Man Equals Man, a collaboration project between Rogaland Theatre and Transiteatret, directed by Tore Vagn Lid."

Sources:

Rogaland Theatre, rogaland-teater.no, 01.08.2010, http://www.rogaland-teater.no/newsread/news.asp?docid=11885&wce=oppsetninger_detalj

The Hedda Award

Yngve Kvistad, date unknown, VG (rating the performance worthy of 5 dice pips) [Oslo]:

"Man Equals Man is some of the weirdest theatre ever staged in a theatre institution in Norway, and the honour goes to the brave souls in Stavanger daring to do so. One thing is the political motivation in the play as well as its staging, but the performance also has great entertaining value."

IdaLou Larsen, 25.04.2008, Original og ekte Brecht (literally: Original and real Brecht), Klassekampen [Oslo], 01.08.2010 publisert på idalou.no, http://www.idalou.no/pub/idalou/kritikker/?aid=95:

"Man Equals Man is a performance of excess, a virtuosic stage game consciously breaking down the classical theatre’s illusion of reality: Not only do the actors from time to time call each other by first names, but Brecht himself intersects philosophical comments, herein performed by a little girl."

Writer and date unknown, Stavanger Aftenblad:

"A welcome break from the absolute pandering to the audience. (..) The Brecht classic is a funny-sad and at the same time pretty tragic game with the great questions of life. (…) deep and superficial in the same way. Brecht plays with us, entirely seriously."

Writer and date unknown, Bergens Tidende:

"In Man Equals Man desperate pessimism, cynical irony, grotesque gallows humour, bitter misanthropy and the sense of doom still rule. (..) Still it has become an interesting, involving production, with its mix of raw reportage, surrealism, baroque paradoxes in style and content, ambiguous irony, playful breaks with illusion and confusing style."

• The Hedda Award 2008 - Theatre project of the year

• The Hedda Award 2008 - Theatre project of the year