About the Company
Ibsen Stage Company's collaborative platform was founded in 1999-2000.
The company's visual style, deeply rooted in the material's psychological mechanics, seeks to merge text, music and movement and rejects any socio-historical readings or references.
Critic’s Choice – Five Best Plays Nationwide
The Independent, Pillars of Society
In 2003 the company's production of Little Eyolf caught the attention of UK's leading Ibsen scholar Inga-Stina Ewbank. The production was included in her published paper Reading Ibsen's Signs: Ambivalence on Page and Stage presented at the International Ibsen conference in New York the same year.
“The Norwegian director, Terje Tveit, should not be underestimated ... an accessible and bracing piece of theatre.”
Evening Standard, Little Eyolf
In 2002 the company's production of Pillars of Society received Critic's Choice in The Independent. Since then the company has received significant interest, particularly from abroad. In 2004 the company's production of A Doll's House was invited to perform at the International Ibsen Stage Festival at the Norwegian National Theatre in Oslo. The company's productions of Peer Gynt Recharged and Recording Hedda were shortlisted for the same festival programme in 2012 and 2014. In 2012 Peer Gynt was invited to open the Delhi IbsenFestival ‘12 in Dehli, India.
“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.”
London Metro, A Dolls House
Supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy the company opened the UK 2006 Ibsen centenary celebrations with Little Eyolf in the presence of Vanessa Redgrave. Later the same year the production was invited to perform at Teatret Vårt in Norway and at the Ibsen celebrations in Ålesund.
“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 pacy proof that Ibsen’s understanding of people, and the desperate things they do in the search for fulfilment, can outshine the gloom.”
Time Out, Little Eyolf
The company has hosted five Ibsen seminars in the UK. Speakers have included Professor Laura Caretti of University of Siena, Ba Clementsen from the Norwegian National Theatre, Professor Janet Garton of University of East Anglia, Professor Frode Helland and Førsteamanuensis Anne Marie Rekdal of University of Oslo, Dr Marie Wells of UCL and author, critic and cultural historian, Paul Binding.
“Terje Tveit, with a perception which give his unconventional Ibsen revivals the revelatory power director Stephen Daldry brought to J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. All the time the surface takes you away from what’s expected, the production draws you to the play’s heart.”
ReviewsGate, Recording Hedda
The company name, Ibsen Stage Company, was launched on 24 January 2008. The event was initiated by the Minister Councillor of Press, Information and Culture, Stein Iversen, at the Royal Norwegian Embassy and was hosted by the Norwegian ambassador Bjarne Lindstrøm. It took place at the ambassador's residence at Kensington Green in the presence of Ibsen's great grandson Tancred Ibsen and his wife Ellinor Ibsen.
“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.”
Camden New Journal, Rosmersholm
The company has worked with a pool of associates. Collaborations include work with Norwegian composer Kaja Bjørntvedt, multi-media designer Momchil Alexiev, translator Marie Wells, costume and set designer Yana Valcheva, choreographer Federica Zurleni and lighting designer Christopher Nairne.
“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.”
ReviewsGate, Recording Hedda
In 2012 Bulgarian director and dramaturg Roza Grigorova joined Terje Tveit as artistic director.
“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”
Stage Won, Peer Gynt Recharged
Drawing heavily on its multi-cultural artists and associates the company starts devising a multi-lingual project based on Ibsen’s first play Catilina. The project’s working title, The International Criminal Tribunal for the Persecution of Catilina, signals a new direction for ISC. The project is being developed both in London and outside the UK.
“At the centre is a strong Ibsen portrayal. Sarah Head shows the technical assurance and emotional understanding of a fine Nora. She signals her new awareness of her husband and their marriage early, standing statue-like on a gift-wrapped box, arms out and expressing deep shock, turned from Helmer as he moves with childish lack of emotional control through extremes of fear and relief. Head clearly shows enlightenment awakening Nora’s mind; the face is immobile apart from the eyes, which register the dawning realisation of her husband’s weakness and its massive implication for her own future. ... Non-realistic Ibsen wins out thanks to some clear ideas and a beautifully-acted Nora.”
ReviewsGate, A Doll’s House
