Kjære publikum
Hvilke tanker kommer når livet nærmer seg slutten? Hvilke øyeblikk står igjen som de sterkeste, viktigste og virkeligste? Når var det man kjente at man virkelig levde og virkelig elsket?
Fortellinger om sjelens og kjærlighetens skjøre vilkår i krig finnes det mange av. Det som gjør stykket «Narvik» unikt, er at fortellingen kommer som drømmeaktige tilbakeblikk som lar publikum kjenne på den emosjonelle intensiteten som kan prege mennesker i en krigssituasjon.
Jeg var aldri i tvil om at det var Kim Sørensen som skulle regissere «Narvik». Han har en intuitiv forståelse av stofflighet og atmosfære, og kan skape store, følelsesladde og overraskende bilder. Og ikke minst har han satt sammen et strålende ensemble og et sterkt kunstnerisk lag. Sammen griper de tak i oss og fører oss tilbake til et mørkt og vått andre verdenskrig.
Velkommen!
Teatersjef
Kjærligheten river og sliter
Jeg ønsker å gi dere et maleri av en forestilling, en symfoni, en forestilling der elementene spiller på lag.
– Lys, lyd, røyk, tekst, vann, stål – Vi røffer det til, drar det ut i kantene. Det er mye effekter, det er tøft å se på.
Det er voldsomme ting i sving, hvordan oppstår, vokser og består kjærlighet under voldsomme vilkår. For dette er en kjærlighetshistorie, mellom han og hun, mellom han og han, og mellom han og hjemlandet. En historie om kjærligheten og lengsel som oppstår under krig. Den krigen som er så viktig å huske, den krigen vi ikke må slutte å fortelle historier fra. De siste gjenlevende fra denne krigen er i ferd med å bli borte, og da er det enda viktigere at historiene deres lever videre og kan lære oss.
Det er også kjærlighet til teater, en mektig og svær teateropplevelse. Den er visuell, den er audiovisuell, det er en sterk historie, historien treffer deg, og den river deg i hjertet. Du vil kjenne deg igjen i dette, kjærlighet kjenner alle seg igjen i, kjærligheten er jo som en krig, den river og sliter.
Regissør
It completes the story
My grandfather Bill Mothershaw was eighteen when he went to war: a boy from Liverpool sailing out in to the unknown. He died in 2015 aged ninety-one. He had a sharp memory right to the end, but when I asked him about his war he certainly didn’t remember everything. I got fragments, impressions, scraps of information, feelings and images out of order. He once sailed on a ship called The Gazelle, he remembered the blue of the Atlantic and his eyes lit up when he described cutting through those waters: ‘Great days Liz. You really felt you were doing something’. He remembered horrific things: shovelling bodies from the deck of a flooded ship, cornering and shooting German soldiers in Oslo at the end of the war, seeing Norwegians considered traitors brutally punished in the street. He remembered the cold: slipping on frozen piss and vomit on deck in the Arctic, boots glued to the legs with frost, looking forward to the daily tot of rum. The story he told most often and most proudly was from 1945. He was on the flotilla that brought the Norwegian Prince Olav back to Oslo after the end of the Nazi occupation. He spoke so vividly about entering the Oslo fjord, seeing the people rowing out in little boats lifting up their hands for bread: ‘They were starving’. He didn’t talk of war as glorious or meaningful or terrible or harrowing, but as all those things. In his memory it was all those impressions and feelings at once, and so much more he might have forgotten, or perhaps would never tell me.
Narvik isn’t my grandfather’s story — there’s a lot in there that’s pure fiction — but it’s inspired by the strange days he lived through, and perhaps writing the play was my way of saying goodbye to him, of trying to make sense of the disconnection of past and present. Faced with the disorientating movement of time and events, we seek out love and connection. It’s what the play’s central character Jim does as he longs for his lover Else. It’s what I did when I sat down with my grandfather and asked him questions about his life. It’s what every person does when they come to the theatre. We come to see a play to be entertained, amused, but we also come to understand, to relate to the characters on stage, the person sitting next to us. When a whole audience laughs or cries or breathes in at once it’s a little shining piece of connection — a moment of clarity and relief. Narvik’s a love story, a war story, a thriller with music… I hope it’s also a thread in the dark between my grandfather and all those other boys who went to war, and me, and every stranger who feels compelled to buy a ticket.
I couldn’t be more thrilled that Nordland Teater have chosen to bring this play back to life, and to relaunch it in Narvik is perfect. In a way it completes the story: the threads of memory and imagination connecting across oceans.
Playwright
