© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
Ibsen Stage Company’s collaborative platform was founded by Terje J Tveit in 2000 on the London Fringe with the generous and instrumental support of Cecilia Darker and Cleo Sylvestre at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington, Michael Head, the Royal Norwegian Embassy UK, Peter Davis and Stagephoto, Finnuala McNulty, Martin Clayton, Manfred Pagel, numerous Ibsen scholars and in particular Dr Marie Wells of University College London and Professsor Laura Caretti of University of Siena, as well as all our creative professionals.
The company's extensive catalogue of productions include works by Henrik Ibsen as well as other playwrights, workshops, seminars and site-specific events.
The company's experimental work, deeply rooted in the material's psychological mechanics, consider all textual signs to be performative opportunities rather than fixed representations. The company's work merge text, music and movement, by which it has developed a distinctive visual style and trademark.
Ibsen Stage Company's creative work has also developed several new versions of Henrik Ibsen’s plays building on workshops, company rehearsals and rehearsed readings.
The company currently works both in the UK and overseas and develops work in partnerships with other production companies, arts festivals og creative artists.
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
On 17 January 2006 Ibsen Stage Company's production of Little Eyolf opens the Ibsen anniversary, Ibsen Year 2006, at the Riverside Studios in London by invitation of the Royal Norwegian Embassy, UK. The premiere is introduced by Dame Vanessa Redgrave.
Complimenting the standard of work, Michael Billington in The Guardian calls for a more conventional and traditional staging of Ibsen’s drama. National critic Timothy Ramsden, however, praises the production as exciting, innovative and insightful along with a handful of other critics including Professor Laura Caretti of the University of Siena.
The production of Little Eyolf is complemented by weekly Ibsen talks given by two of Britain's leading Ibsen scholars, Professor Gunilla Anderman of the University of Surrey and Dr. Marie Wells of University College London. Ibsen Stage Company also hosts an Ibsen seminar chaired by Dr. Marie Wells. Speakers include Professor Laura Caretti of the University of Siena, Italy; Professor Frode Helland of the University of Oslo, Associate Professor Anne Marie Rekdal of the University of Volda, Norway; and Professor Janet Garton of the University of East Anglia.
The production of Little Eyolf is invited to guest-perform at Teatret Vårt in Molde, Norway, and also performs as part of the Ibsen celebrations in Ålesund the same year. Professor Laura Caretti reviews the production in Hystrio, one of Italy’s leading theatre publications.
In the autumn of 2006, Ibsen Stage Company's artistic director, Terje J Tveit, is invited to speak at the the International Ibsen Conference in Rome, Three-Dimensional Ibsen: Politics, Feminism and the Stage. The conference is opened by the Norwegian foreign secretary Jonas Gahr Støre.
Terje J Tveit presents his paper Ibsen and the Curse of the Corset in which he explicates and contextualises Ibsen Stage Company's non-naturlistic approach to Ibsen's work.
“Critic's Choice - Five Best Plays Nationwide”
“This latter day Ibsen play hasn’t been given the big West End treatment yet but on tonight‘s evidence perhaps a swift transfer is in order.”
“The Norwegian director, Terje Tveit, should not be underestimated [...] an accessible and bracing piece of theatre.”
“Recording Hedda reveals Hedda anew. Terje Tveit brings freshness and new insights with a perception which give his unconventional Ibsen revivals the revelatory power director Stephen Daldry brought to J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls.”
“Kaja Bjørntvedt’s score pulses and waves with quiet insistence beneath much of the action, which goes far beyond mere paralleling to re-ignite the passions easily lost in the respectability of a conventional revival. [...] A production which holds the attention of an audience seated in a circle round the central action for two rapid hours.”
“The striking lighting design by Christopher Nairne resembles the tone and angles of a graphic novel, the well-drilled, expressionistic acting style to the compressed, heightened rhyming scheme of Tveit’s verse; each was slick and dazzled in its own right.”
“What is remarkable is the fluid choreography that Tveit has brought to the play. Within a constricted space, the six actors manage to suggest the picture of the house by the fjord, the jetty and the horror of the drowned Eyolf’s eyes staring out from under the water.”
“In Ibsen Stage Company's stripped-down adaptation directed by Terje Tveit, the moments of high drama and conflict are handled with gripping sureness of touch and paced with wonderful precision. […] you can feel the zig-zags of electricity on stage.”
“Tom Peters is a young Alfred, but has an unforced vulnerability that contrasts well with Sarah Head’s magnificent, disappointed Rita. [...] This production is a pacey proof that Ibsen’s understanding of people, and the desperate things they do in the search for fulfilment, can outshine the gloom.”
“Superb ensemble theatre hitting its dramatic mark. Terje Tveit’s Ibsen Stage Company (Britain’s Ibsen equivalent of the RSC) shows a confident, perceptive and radical way with this written-to-be-read epic, following the life of a country lad, and liar, turned millionaire magnate.”
“Paul Hampton transforms himself from narrator and player to prop in a way that has to be seen to be believed. [...] Pillars of strength.”
“With minimal props, but excellent use made of empty picture frames, acting, design, choreography and music work together to create a performance that will convince even those who normally believe in the sanctity of the text.”
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
© Image courtesy of StagePhoto
“Here is presented a new translation of the Norwegian original that retains the feel of Ibsen’s verse and rhyme - certainly no mean feat and in fact not fully retained in many of the standard published translations of the play. [...] The production is an absolute riot, veering between a drunken, bawdy party to a sinister hush and back without any immediate stops.”
The company is initially called Dale Teater Kompani. Its new name, Ibsen Stage Company, is launched on 24 January 2008.
The event is initiated by the Minister Councillor of Press, Information and Culture, Stein Iversen, at the Royal Norwegian Embassy, UK, and is hosted by the Norwegian ambassador Bjarne Lindstrøm.
It takes place at a reception in the ambassador’s residence in Kensington, London, in the presence of Henrik Ibsen’s great grandson Tancred Ibsen Jr, and his wife Ellinor Ibsen.
