Jug meg en saga* (Lie a saga for me)

In the historical article Perleporten Teatergruppe. Gruppas historie, redigert og utarbeidet av Karl Hoff, Oslo, april, 2009 (literally: Perleporten Teatergruppe. The history of the company, edited and processed by Karl Hoff, Oslo, April 2009) the following is written about Jug meg en saga* (Lie a saga for me):

"The work on the script started in March ´76. From June we worked with the text and the direction, together, in the rehearsal room no. one, at the amateur culture centre called Oslo Amatørsenter, in Trafo, Tøyen in Oslo. The other artists made their contributions to the production each on their own, and eventually everything was collected at Trafo, until the last few days of intense rehearsals and last adjustments in the theatre and concert hall of Henie Onstad Art Centre.

The production got a positive, but mixed, reception in the media. Personally we were of the opinion that a production keeps changing when meeting its audience, and it fell natural to use the experiences from the criticism and the performances, to evaluate how we could best convey what weighed upon our hearts; a continuing discussion among the involved in the company led to the presentation of a shorter, tighter version of the play at Scene 7 in the nightclub Club 7 in Oslo, a Sunday in January 1977. The work had been fruitful, we felt. The hold of the text and the direction had become what we wanted it to.

After these first few performances at Høvikodden and in Oslo we left for a tour in February 1977, in a borrowed car with a trailer. The tour went to Skien, Arendal, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Bergen and Notodden. We performed Jug meg en saga and Knoll og Tott* (The Katzenjammer Kids); in all 20 performances in two and a half weeks. In Stavanger Rogaland Theatre, represented by theatre manager Kjetil Bang-Hansen, invited us to perform Jug meg en saga two nights at the theatre's intimate stage.

Then, with irregular intervals, followed Jug meg en saga performances in Eastern Norway; Rådhusteatret in Ås,The non-degree granting college ofVestby, the cinema Panorama Kino in Eidsvoll, the teacher college Hamar Lærerskole, the main hall Storsalen at the museum Maihaugen Lillehammer - and, in between these, some performances in Oslo, among them at The National Academy of Theatre."

Source:

The private archive of Perleporten Teatergruppe. Donated by Karl Hoff, 10.05.2009

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

Erik Pierstorff in Dagbladet 1977, date unknown:

"Sometimes it switches styles so swiftly it is a joy in itself. The actors put on white gloves, and in the style of an indicated old-fashioned ballroom dance they expose the image of the frozen, loveless sexuality of a bourgeois marriage, the way many experience it. And all of a sudden the connections between business and emotions, our feeling of life and our aggression aren't obnoxious, but understandable. And scary. [...] And now the funding bodies have to understand this, too. Ifour cultural politics isn't organised in such a way it can include the source of talent here standing up, something is wrong with it. Then we have to change it, because then it doesn't work the way we were all told it should. Somebody must have lied.(...) In the meantime the other theatres can recognise the opportunity and invite Perleporten - perhaps to the second-largest stage venues. That is where I think this production works the best. Do you hear me? Somebody has to pull themselves together. Perleporten already has."

Kjell Johanssen in Arbeiderbladet 1976, date unknown:

"The mentioned acts weren't all good, but the five in the company who have written, instructed and play them all, in moments had dramatic presentations surpassing much of what one sees in professional theatres, come to imagination, bravery and will to act out simple ideas, developed to a full-stage scene.[...] They plod across the floor as groups of housewives at a dancing school, blow the trumpet and perform teasingly in Brecht formations to a rhythmic beat. The erotic part of it is so explosive it could have had the paragraph 211 of the criminal code to jump, but it is performed so touchingly naïve it could be accepted at Sunday School. [...] It would be disagreeable if a company working so consciously and progressive shouldn't get part of the artistic funds."

"Arab" in Telemark Arbeiderblad, date unknown:

"Jug meg en saga* (Lie a saga for me) is a piece that plays the audience more than I, personally, have ever seen. Perleporten hasn't just made an incredible good text, but they also perform it so intensely and so tight the reactions in the audience intertwine. One laughs violently at burlesque ideas and brutal irony, but the laugh sort of doesn't find the time to die down before one is situated in the middle of heart-breaking naked humanity, and then, God help us, one laughs at that though, despite what one wants to."

Lasse Tømte in Gateavisa, January 1977:

"Their decency towards the material is what grips me the most in Jug meg en saga. When violence and sexual speculation are to be presented it must be hard to avoid using the same phenomena as suggesting effects. Violence is hard to describe without expressing it. Perleporten has made it. Continuously they have avoided playing on the alienation of the audience. They express it and present the kind of honesty and decency that will make anyone embarrassed."

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