{"id":186,"date":"2019-05-27T15:35:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T15:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/?p=186"},"modified":"2022-02-06T20:04:28","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T20:04:28","slug":"unruly-feminist-circus-in-the-wake-of-metoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/unruly-feminist-circus-in-the-wake-of-metoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Unruly Feminist Circus in the Wake of #metoo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Loretto Villalobos<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guds olydiga revben<\/em> (God\u2019s Disobedient Rib<\/em>), adapted by L\u00e6rke Reddersen and Martina Montelius from the book by Gunilla Thorgren. Director: Tilde Bj\u00f6rfors. Set: Fridjon Rafnsson. Costume: Anna Heymowska. Lighting design: Patrik Angestav. Music and sound design: Samuel \u201cLoop Tok\u201d L\u00e5ngbacka. Premiered on March 21, 2019, at The Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm, Sweden.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Inanna (Marilen Ribot Esterlich) sparks her own rebellion. Photo: Sara P. Borgstr\u00f6m<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It is difficult to take these words from Genesis<\/em> 2: 21-22 at face value when Marilen Ribot Esterlich swings violently back and forth on her trapeze, attached to the ceiling inside the Royal Dramatic Theatre\u2019s main stage in Stockholm, Sweden\u2014that woman is created merely as a companion to man, an appendage to man\u2019s flesh and for that reason slightly less perfect than the rest of God\u2019s creation. In the scene that leads up to those death-defying moments, Ribot Esterlich has, as the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, challenged her father (Hamadi Khemiri) to a drinking contest in a scheme to trick him into giving her the same powers as men possess. As she is raised up to the ceiling, after winning the drinking contest, she makes a call to arms in the name of all the forsaken women in myth and history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This same call to arms is made, at least implicitly, by Gunilla Thorgren in the book Guds<\/em> <\/em>olydiga<\/em> <\/em>revben<\/em> <\/em>(God\u2019s\nDisobedient Rib<\/em>, 2017). How is it that these words from the Bible\u2019s\ncreation myth have been so powerful as to legitimize the subjugation of women\nand erase them from myth and history? This question is the starting point for\nThorgren, a former member of the legendary radical feminist Group 8 during the\n1970s, when she dives into the history of Christian thought that has laid the\nfoundation for the subordination of women through the millennia up to this\npresent day. Throughout the book\u2019s chapters, Thorgren challenges the Christian\nhistory of thought and invites historical figures and contemporary feminist\ntheologians to a conversation about women in Christianity, offering an\nalternative narrative to the one established by the Church Fathers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sven Bor\u00e4ng as Adam tastes the forbidden fruit offered by Ellen Jelinek as Eve. Photo: Sara P. Borgstr\u00f6m<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, together with Malm\u00f6\nStadsteater, adapts the book for the stage, it is not surprising that it should\nbe in collaboration with Cirkus Cirk\u00f6r, internationally known for their work\nwith Folkoperan in 2016 and their staging of Philip Glass\u2019 Satyagraha<\/em>\u2014performances that gained the contemporary circus company\na Europe Theatre Prize for New Realities in 2018. Cirkus Cirk\u00f6r, under the\nleadership of Tilde Bj\u00f6rfors, has dominated the contemporary circus scene in\nSweden for over a decade. Guds olydiga revben\n<\/em>can be seen as a sequel to last year\u2019s Epif\u00f3nima<\/em>\nthat premiered in \u00d6stg\u00f6tateatern. This was Circus Cirk\u00f6r\u2019s input in the wake of\nthe #metoo movement that exposed sexual harassment within theatre. Cirkus Cirk\u00f6r\nwanted to take this further and not only contribute with a mere representation\non stage, but extend an aesthetic as well as an organisational alternative to\nthe patriarchy\u2019s performance arts and their institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gunilla (Cecilia Lindqvist) shows the patriarchy the door. Photo Sara P. Borgstr\u00f6m<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the dramatic adaptation of the book, by L\u00e6rke Reddersen and Martina\nMontelius, Gunilla Thorgren\u2019s inquisitive and defiant voice is preserved and\ntransposed to the stage by the excellent Cecilia Lundgren, who bears an uncanny\nresemblance to the real life author\u2014both in attitude and physical appearance.\nShe is a driving force in this expos\u00e9 of thought, always overseeing the events\non stage from her blue armchair where she sits reading her Bible. The expos\u00e9\nbegins\u2014naturally\u2014with the creation of Man and, subsequently, Woman. The tone is\ngleeful, but it is juxtaposed to more serious topics, such as the rape of the\nconcubine in Judges<\/em> 19:22-30 and the\nsymbolic drowning of female author Christine de Pizan\u2014both played by acrobat\nand dancer Methinee Wongtrakoon. This bouncing between the joyful tone and\nsombre themes is consistent throughout the performance, thoughtfully balanced\nout by Samuel L\u00e5ngbacka\u2019s suggestive soundscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To marry contemporary circus with theatre\u2014on the main stage of all places\u2014is in theory a brilliant idea, but the execution misses the mark. And ironically, one of the main reasons for this miss is this attempted marriage. What became a match made in heaven when circus was combined with opera at Folkoperan became, at worst, tedious stretches of time dedicated to declaring the wrongdoings of the Church Fathers, of Luther and the Pope\u2014and proclaiming the heroics of such women as Guglielma of Milano and Bridget of Sweden. Cirkus Cirk\u00f6r\u2019s forte is their ability to show and not to tell, which, unfortunately, is unavoidable when you have to give an ensemble of actors lines and dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Karoline Aam\u00e5s and HamadiKhemiri as Mary Magdalene and Jesus are equals. Photo Sara P. Borgstr\u00f6m<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that the performance\u2019s several elements were lacking\nin congruity and collaborative harmony. The actors are as likely to perform\nriveting acrobatics as the circus performers are to deliver dialogue. And when\nthe synergy between the art forms works at its best, it is undoubtedly\nstriking. One such instance is the airborne pas de deux<\/em> of Mary\nMagdalene (acrobat Karoline Aam\u00e5s) and Jesus (actor Hamadi Khemiri) .The\nmirroring movements of the two on the vertical rope showcase their relationship\nas equals, which the prophet and his apprentice supposedly had, according to\nour narrator Gunilla on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a few weeks after the show premiered, the director of the Royal\nDramatic Theatre, Eirik Stub\u00f8, had to resign. The reason was that several\ncomplaints about the working environment in the theatre had surfaced in a\nsecond wave of the #metoo movement. There is no denying that the timing is odd.\nBut what would inspire true change within an institution such as the Royal\nDramatic Theatre, rather than the exchange of patriarchs at the top, is an\napproach similar to Circus Cirk\u00f6r\u2019s\u2014that is, to offer alternative narratives\nfrom the stage; not necessarily verbally chanted as in a political rally, but\nperformed. That is the truly agitative potential of a performance that sets out\nto inspire a revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cirkus Cirk\u00f6r has attracted the attention of Critical Stages many times. For more please see:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Always Something New: Interview with Tilde Bj\u00f6rfors, Founder of Cirkus Cirk\u00f6r<\/a><\/blockquote>