FJELDFUGLEN
The Mountain Bird by Henrik Ibsen Directed by Lars Øyno (Norway)

Grusomhetens Teater`s (The Theater Of Cruelty) production The Mountain Bird was a world premiere of Henrik Ibsen's unfinished opera libretto from 1859. The libretto is based on a legend about a young girl who lived at the farm 'Birkehaug' in Justedalen. She was the only survivor of the plague that swiped this valley. When people from the next Parish found her after several years, she was acting “shy and wild as the bird” due to the loneliness she had suffered. When villagers from other valleys found her, she had become wild as a little mountain bird. She was nicknamed “The Grouse inJustedalen”.

MAREECHIKA
An adaptation of Lady From The Sea Directed by Ila Arun (India)

The story is told in the folk form as the narrative through the balladeers, Bhopa and Bhopi, traditional story-tellers from Rajasthan, who use the Phad, or a painted scroll to tell their stories. The play begins with the Bhopi telling her husband that she had discovered a new phad, called Ibsenji ka phad, in her late father-in-law’s trunk. She persuades her husband to use this in their next performance, instead of the old, well-worn tales of gods and rajas. He reluctantly agrees and they start their story: Ibsen’s “The Lady from the Sea” becomes the story of Rampyari, (Ibsen’s Ellida Wangel) so named because she was adopted by a priest devoted to Baba Ramdev, a folk deity of Rajasthan. The priest brings her up as his own daughter. But as she grows up, there is a restlessness about her and a great obsession with water which even she cannot understand. She is drawn towards all water-bodies she can access in a desert land and fantasizes about the ocean and the sea, which she has seen only in her dreams.

PEER GYNT
By Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Deepan Sivaraman

This loosely adapted Indian version of Peer Gynt takes place in the setting of a mental asylum. Among the inmates we will find the characters of Peer and others and as gate keeper the magician the God. Peer is in a game with God. At his death table when God was about to remove his 'sinful' heart for a close examination, Peer intervenes. He asks for a second chance to redo his life in a better way. God was curious to see a better version of Peer's troubled former life. God agreed. Hence the game begins. This spatially experimental production is very physical and has a strong visually narrative ritualistic structure.

WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN
Directed by Saulius Antanas Varnas
(Lithuania)

For me is very interesting – how the characters by Henrik Ibsen are ungovernable, sometimes even in utter hopelessness, fight for a dream - it is possible to say, for his love. They fight till they live on the earth, and they fight not one against another, but encounter face to face, destiny – with the Mysteries of Nature that they rise against. They can sacrifice everything for the dream, and that applies characteristically to all the personages, in the last plays written by Ibsen. All of Ibsen characters have the victor lineaments.

BALURA GUDIKARA
An adaptation of The Master Builder
Directed by B. Jayashree (India)

In order to adapt the play I had to first translate the original play entirely, as this play had not been translated previously into Kannada. Therefore a literal translation was prepared first. After that I had to decide on the format we wanted to create. This was a bigger challenge. It had been decided that this play would be directed by B. Jayashree, the well known director of Kannada theatre. Therefore it was inevitable that this play of Ibsen had to have elements of professional theatre as well as the folk elements in its adopted version. We chose the Veera Ghaase folk format. In Veera Ghaase we have ‘Veerabhadra’s, who dance holding sword in their hands. These people are followers of Lord Shiva. It is said in folklore that when Daksha humiliated Lord Shiva, the Veerabhadras made their incarnated on this earth and killed him. We decided that it would be better to use these Veerbhadras directly and characterize Ibsen’s Master Builder through them.

MABOU MINES DOLLHOUSE
(Teleplay)
Directed by Lee Breuer (USA)
With commentaries by Lee Breuer & Maude Mitchell

A cinderblock warehouse in the newly colonized section of downtown Brooklyn called DUMBO (translates as Directly Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is the last place one would expect to see a masterpiece of 19th century bourgeois theatre, and indeed it seemed at first that the production would be an antiillusionist Gegenst with every cable, pipe rail, scaffold, and work light exposed to view. Then a jumble of flats lying face down on the stage was hoisted vertical, and presto, the scene was a brightly wallpapered 19th century parlor with windows, doors, and period furnishings to the scale of "little persons" (the inclusive term now for midgets, dwarfs, and the growth impaired). In short, the play was set in a dollhouse; everything fit except the doll.

- Elinor Fuchs