Kåre Conradi recently participated in BBC Radio 3’s ‘FREE THINKING’ show. The programme will be broadcast at 10pm on Tuesday 27 September 2022 and available online shortly after the broadcast.
The episode is described as:
The individual versus the masses is at the heart of Enemy of the People. A bank manager speculating with his customers’ money is the story told inJohn Gabriel Borkman. Lucinda Coxon and Steve Waters have written new versions of these Ibsen plays. They join Norwegian actor and director Kåre Conradi, theatre critic and writer Mark Lawson and presenter Anne McElvoy to explore the ways in which Ibsen’s characters and dramas resonate now.
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On Oslo’s Victoria Terrasse there’s a white door marked 108. Behind it was once an office in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but before that, late in the 19th century, these rooms were occupied by a figure who has done more for Norway’s reputation abroad than all of its foreign ministers put together.
This was the apartment of Henrik Ibsen, generally regarded as the second-greatest playwright ever, and the second most-performed dramatist in the world. In both these criteria he is bested only by Shakespeare.
Ibsen’s living quarters have now become a significant venue in his thriving theatrical afterlife. For a week in January, two of Norway’s leading classical actors – Kåre Conradi and Pia Tjelta – were rehearsing here with a cast of Norwegian and UK-based actors for a bilingual production of Ibsen’s 1888 play The Lady from the Sea, which premieres this week in London.
The Norwegian Ibsen Company has started a co-operation with The Print Room theatre Coronet in Notting Hill, London. The first production will be a visit from The National Theatre of Norway. This guest performance is funded by the InterNational Foundation.
This production of Little Eyolf has been on the repertoire of The National Theatre of Norway for three years to amazing reviews. The Norwegian Ibsen Company’s artistic director Kåre Conradi is a lifetime employee at The National Theatre of Norway and plays Alfred Almers opposite Pia Tjelta as Rita Almers. Tjelta is these days shooting the series BECK in Sweden where she stars opposite Kristoffer Hivju (Game of Thrones).
The visit of this powerful production to The Print Room also marks the beginning of a working relationship between The Print Room Coronet and The Norwegian Ibsen Company. Artistic Director Kåre Conradi has said at several occasions that The Coronet has many similarities to The National Theatre of Norway. The much needed yet very cool choice of bringing the Coronet stage up to the level of first balcony is something he would have loved to experience at The National Theatre of Norway if an opportunity was given. It brings an incredible intimacy into the grand atmosphere of a big classic theatre house.
Little Eyolf at the Print Room at the Coronet
The co-production from Norway also stars Andrine Sæther, John Emil Jørgensrud and Ine Jansen. Directed by the award winning director Sofia Jupither.
Thursday 19 to Saturday 21 April 2018. BOOK NOW! The Thursday performance is already SOLD OUT.
Artistic Director Kåre Conradi just won The Hedda Award 2016 (Norway’s equivalent to Olivier Award) for best actor in the part of Richard III at The National Theatre of Norway.
Artistic Director Kåre Conradi is to star as Edward IV in Trevor Nunn’s production of The Wars of the Roses at the Rose Theatre Kingston.
Epic, enthralling, extraordinary. The Rose stage will be transformed into a battleground for The Wars of the Roses, a gripping distillation of four of Shakespeare’s history plays, directed by Trevor Nunn, one of the world’s leading Shakespearean directors. Kåre will be joined on stage by Joely Richardson, Rufus Hound, Robert Sheehan, Oliver Cotton, Laurence Spellman and Susan Tracy.
A spectacular theatrical event not seen since it was first produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 by Peter Hall & John Barton, The Wars of the Roses is a trilogy of plays about one of the most tumultuous and intriguing periods of British history – the 15th century conflict between the House of York and the House of Lancaster for the throne of England.
Through these plays Shakespeare examines the very essence of human conflict. A tale of feuding families, murderous kings and adulterous queens, scheming and betrayal, revolts and battles, The Wars of the Roses chronicles the final struggle for power in medieval England.
For the last two years, awake or dreaming, I have had only one thing on my mind-Ibsen. Immersed in adapting Peer Gynt in Hindi, my mind has been working on having an Ibsen Theatre Festival in Mumbai. Finally, Peer Gynt is ready as Pir Ghani and the date for the festival draws near. My dream has been realized.
Born under the Zodiac sign, Pisces, (a sign I humbly share with Henrik Ibsen), in a city on the outskirts of the vast, lonely deserts of Rajasthan, perhaps it was destiny that I would be drawn towards water, inspired by Neptune, God of springs, rivers and the seas. And as the Piscean dreamer, I have been initiated from birth into a world of fantasy, making my several worlds between deserts, water and mountains explode into another sphere of fantasy, the theatre.
Ila Arun
It was in this world that I came upon the work of Henrik Ibsen. Then in 2010, I was invited to adapt and direct a play by Ibsen for the DADA Festival in New Delhi. Somehow, I was fascinated by the possibilities that The Lady from the Sea offered, especially in the folk tradition. And that was the beginning of my ‘obsession’ with Ibsen. As I worked on the script, placing the story in the arid areas of Rajasthan, it seemed to me as if Ibsen in the 19th century in faraway Norway was addressing issues in Indian society! I could almost feel the relevance of Ibsen in our society even today and I realised that culturally and emotionally, Indians and Norwegians were not too far apart. Ibsen had managed to encapsulate our concerns– women’s issues, relationships, family ties in a changing society—with such skill and understanding, that each one of his readers could empathise and connect with his characters. The adaptation, titled Mareechika (Mirage) was a great success and I rode high on the waves that hit the shores of India and Norway, literally, since subsequently, thanks to the Norwegian Embassy in India, we actually crossed the seas to Norway as invitees to the Ibsen Festival in Oslo in 2012.
My love affair with Ibsen reached a climax when I saw that Ibsen was an icon for people from all walks of life. My horizon expanded and I realized that like Varanasi, Oslo too is a city of temples, its theatres, where people worship their literary gods in awed silence.
Like one obsessed, I saw everything associated with Ibsen and in that chill weather, I embraced him like a shawl, wrapping each memory into my very being. And in the course of my visit, I met three wonderful ‘Ibsen’ people—Kåre Conradi, Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer and Helge Lien. Their performances impressed me so much that I was determined to see these artistes perform before an Indian audience. Thus began the idea of an Ibsen Festival in Mumbai. Ruth is singing on Ibsen’s themes in jazz form while Kare will give an hour-long performance of Peer Gynt which we have seen him present at Oslo. It will be a challenge indeed for our theatre group performing “Pir Ghani” to witness his unforgettable performance.
We are indeed grateful to the Norwegian Embassy for making the Ibsen festival possible.
The first Ibsen Theatre Festival in Mumbai runs from 31 October to 2 November 2014.
Ibsen Company’s Artistic Director Kåre Conradi is appearing in a National Theatret production of Ibsen’s Little Eyolf.
When the dream of the perfect family becomes a nightmare for the children.
We all seem to be concerned with how we relate to our children, but have we forgotten what it really means? Does the facade matter too much? Do we neglect the importance of just being there?
These are the questions director Sofia Jupither poses in Little Eyolf. She has dreamed of staging it for years – and now that this dream has come true, she once again she demonstrates her insight into the world of children.
Eyolf is a child who is not seen. As a baby, he fell from the changing table because his parents, Rita and Alfred, were more concerned with each other than with his safety. In most productions, the emotional warfare between Rita and Alfred is the focus of the play. In Jupither’s version, though, Eyolf is the protagonist. Little Eyolf drowns, and Rita and Alfred – played by Pia Tjelta and Kåre Conradi – do not see what they had until they have lost it.
Of all Ibsen’s plays, Little Eyolf is the one least influenced by the surrounding community. There are no telegrams in locked mailboxes and there is no syphilis; there is only a reference to a steamer. The story is easy to adapt to our own time. The story of the vulnerable child speaks as just as strongly to us today. Ibsen people belong to our time.
The Premiere is Tuesday 9 September and runs until 18 October 2014. Performed in Norwegian, with English subtitles.
Artistic director of the Norwegian Ibsen Company, Kare Conradi, will play the leading role in a full scale outdoor production of Peer Gynt this summer in Horten, Norway, alongside a cast of about 40 actors.
It will be in cooperation with Teater Ibsen and the Navy Orchestra, directed by award winning theater / film director – and director of the New Los Angeles Theater Center – José Luis Valenzuela.
Kåre Conradi recently participated in BBC Radio 3’s ‘FREE THINKING’ show. The programme will be broadcast at 10pm on Tuesday 27 September 2022 and available online shortly after the broadcast.
