August Strindberg - Hemsöborna (Stockholms stadsteater)

Han kom som ett yrväder en aprilafton och hade ett Höganäskrus i en svångrem om halsen. (He arrived like a whirlwind an evening in April and had a Höganäs jug in a belt around his neck.)

~ August Strindberg, Hemsöborna

The quote above is probably one of the most famous of all introductory sentences in Swedish literature. It is taken from August Strindbergs book Hemsöborna which was first published as a novel in 1887. Strindberg spent a couple of summers at Kymmendö in the Stockholm archipelago. The inhabitants on that island took the novel personally and fobid Strindberg to return there because of it. I went to see a theatre version of the novel, directed by Stefan Metz at Stockholms stadsteater yesterday

The cast of Hemsöborna. Photo: Sören Vilks

The plot revolves around the inhabitant at a farm at the island Hemsö in the archipelago outside of Stockholm. The farm is run by the widow Flod (often called madam or moster [aunt]). Her son Gusten prefers to be out on the sea hunting and the farm decays, so she sends out for help and Carlsson is hired as a farmhand to help and he is the one arriving as a whirlwind an evening in April. 

Ann Petrén as Madam Flod.
Photo: Sören Vilks

Carlsson knows a lot about farming, but nothing about the sea, but with his help the farm prosper and everyone seems to like him quite well (in the case of Madam Flod a little too well...), but Gusten remains sceptical. Carlsson rents out one of the houses to summer guests. They have a maid he falls in love with, but after hearing Madam Flod proclaiming her love for him and realising he would get his own farm, he marries her.

The marriage, however, changes Carlsson and he goes from energetic farm to greedy entrepreneur. This theme is something it has in common with Chekhov's The Chery Orchard which I saw in Göteborg last week. Hemsöborna treats it far better though! The Cherry Orchard tried too hard to place the plot into a modern setting, it did not work because it felt too much like it was forcing political standpoints down in your throat and a classical play was added sort of like an afterthought. Hemsöborna, however, sticks quite well to the original plot and because it does, it manages to portray how power and money can corrupt a man.

The book

All the actors (even the often dancing extras) were very good. I am a big fan of Ann Petrén who played Madam Flod since long before this and she was really amazing here as well, but Claes Malmberg worked very well as Carlsson as well.

In The Cherry Orchard I was very confused by the scenery. With the actors coming out of boxes and trees in the background that was not even cherry trees and nothing about it really added up to what the characters were saying.

The scenography of Hemsöborna was very simple but extremely effective. It was all made up of corrugated fiberboards covering the entire stage, screen which showed what I think was Strindberg's own paintings and with sticks being used as waves, tree branches and fishing-rods. However the scenography also turned out to be extremely effective. The last scene is about Gusten and Carlsson together with the farmhands Rundqvist and Norman being out on the ice in a snow storm and the ice starts to break up into ice floes. The rest of the cast tore off those pieces of corrugated fiberboard pretty much piece by piece and it worked very well.

So to sum it all up: while the Göteborg theatre production of The Cherry Orchard (which was the one production I was looking forward to) was one of my probably worst theatre experiences ever, Hemsöborna (which was an unexpected christmas gift) turned out to be one of my best theatre experiences ever (Not the best. That is still Othello at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.) and it restored my faith in the theatre that got torn a bit last weekend.





The photos, besides the first and the last ones, was borrowed from here. Photographer: Sören Vilks

Anton Chekhov - The Cherry Orchard (Göteborgs stadsteater)

Last Friday, I went to see Göteborgs stadsteater's production of Anton Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard (Original title: Вишнёвый сад) directed by Anja Suša in Göteborg (Gothenburg). It tells the tale of the aristocratic Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya who returns to the family estate that is about to be auctioned to pay the mortgage. She gets offers to help save it, but is not at all interested in them and it is sold to Jermolaj Aleksejevitj Lopachin who is the the son of one of the family's former serfs. He cuts down the cherry orchard as the family leaves the estate.

The play deals a lot with class issues with an aristocracy trying to remain its status and societal position in a changing society and a new upcoming bourgoisie class trying to trying to find its way in their new materialistic reality. It opened at Moscow Art Theatre on 17 January 1904 and I can see how it can work in a modern setting whre classes are changing and no one really knows how to deal with there new position in society.

However, the production at Göteborgs stadsteater did not adapt the play into a contemporary setting very well. Almost throughout the entire play it felt like the characters actions did not fit with what they said, making the production feel confusing. The political statement became quite exaggerated and too much in your face for my taste. They were also the best example of how the character's actions did not fit with their actions, making the statements feel very misplaced, even though some of them I can actually agree to some extent with.

In the original play, Ranevskaja's brother Leonid Andrejevitj Gajev likes to play billiard, which in Göteborgs stadsteater's production had been changed to table tennis for some unknown reason. According to the English Wikipedia page about the play the billiard obsession is a symbol of the aristocractic decadent life-style and incompetence to adapt to a new reality. Having Lopachin come in with a golden table tennis racquet trying to interupt Ranevskaja and Gajev's game, like he did, would therefore be quite a strong symbol, but it was all lost to me due to the confusion that I felt about the play already by then.

I must admit, I was mainly interested in seeing the play because Simon J Berger played Lopachin. He is my favourite Swedish actor and he and the others did a good job with it all. The only problem I had was with the character Dunjasja who is described as husa (maid), which was not at all clear. The girl sounded robotic and I sat through the entire play wondering if it was intentional or not. She also had a puppet, which seemed to be an older version of herself which made it even more confusing. The main reason why I think the robotic tone of her voice was intentional, was that she did not use it while speaking with the sort of changed voice through the puppet.

So to sum it all up, as I have now read about the play, I can understand a few of the choices that was made during the production, but I should not have to read about the play to understand what I saw on stage and a lot of it is still a great mystery to me...