Drama

In the mirror of comedy

By Janicke Branth

“Denmark is in the middle of a Bermuda triangle of pertinent drama. It is this unique position in Europe in the midst of genres and theatre history that, at its best moments, gives Danish theatre the ability to produce its own special kind of theatre,” wrote dramatist Jokum Rohde in 2005.
Still, there is yet another influence which goes further back to the age of enlightment: The three corners of the triangle are confrontational German theatre, English realism, and “the hushed moan of Nordic melancholy.”

Tradition
It all began with a massive wave of French/Italian influence. The absolute monarchs surrounded themselves by turns with French and Italian opera and ballet companies. Only when one of the French performers was stranded in Copenhagen was the seed planted for genuine Danish theatre. The premiere of Den politiske kandestøber [The Political Tinker] by Ludvig Holberg in 1722 was the beginning of a two-year obsession with theatre: his 15 comedies, which are still the core of the Danish theatrical repertoire. The great comedies – Jeppe på Bjerget [Jeppe of the Hill], Jean de France, Erasmus Montanus, Den stundesløse [The Fidget], Den vægelsindede [The Waverer] – contain a gallery of characters and dreamers who have left their mark on Danish literature and, even today, challenge new young directors. Holberg’s comedies struck something fundamental.

Danish naturalism
With the coming of democracy, naturalism took possession of the Danish stage. The tragic rhetorical style had never made a home on our stages. Great pathos was generally greeted with mockery or scepticism by a very diverse audience. This new style of acting that emerged in the Danish Royal Theatre was ideally suited to Ibsen and Strindberg but left little immediate mark on Danish drama. Major naturalistic works did not appear until the age of television: Leif Panduro and a modern playwright such as Stig Dalager are quite alone in representing the genre today. The peculiar thing about Danish drama is our predilection for comedy – preferably black, harsh and cool as in Peter Asmussen – or grotesque, tragicomic and absurd as is the case with the very unusual Jess Ørnsbo.

Political revue
Radical and political agitation theatre never really established itself on the Danish stage. However, the revue did – even in the 1920s and 1930s, national and international events were subject to theatrical satire. From Kjeld Abell and architect Poul Henningsen during the interwar period to Peter Larsen’s monologues in the 1990s about Tamil refugees in Denmark (Mens vi venter på retfærdigheden [Waiting for Justice]), the revue has had more impact than political theatre. Here, popular song traditions are coupled with a fragmentary, sketch-like plot sequence in a biting satire on the problems of the day – without clear pedagogical/political intent. Today, among several others, Thorbjørn Krebs has exploited this genre in a play such as Europæerne [The Europeans]. Nikoline Werdelin’s dramatized cartoon universe also nods to the revue tradition. She mercilessly depicts today’s relationship problems and the nomadic life of Copenhagen’s narcissistic singles. The unbearable lightness of modern life is languorously pathetic and wildly entertaining in Werdelin’s plays.

The new generation of the ’90s
The 1990s saw a new development in Danish theatre and a breakthrough for Danish drama, which suddenly became just as interesting as Danish film. A young generation of spectators streamed into the new theatre centres: Dr. Dante, Mungo Park, Kaleidoskop and Får 302. New and original voices found their way onto the stage.

The new dramatists clearly had a closer and less timorous relationship to theatre and the writing process. Directors such as Nikolai Cederholm and Lars Kaalund were themselves responsible for some of the new writing; some came from playwrights such as Line Knutzon. It was not so much plot and storyline as imaginative dramatic language that instantly made the young Line Knutzon well-known and respected. Like Jess Ørnsbo, she formulates the dramatic clash between the individual and society in language rather than in amorphous dramaturgy. She plays with the clichés of everyday language and transforms inner states of consciousness into specific images. She stages the conflict between “self” and surroundings in a theatrical way that speaks directly to a new generation of theatregoers – both in Denmark and abroad.

Female dramatist on the field
However different they may be, Line Knutzon, Nikoline Werdelin and Astrid Saalbach became the dominant dramatists of the Nineties. Even though all three are women, we are beyond any form of feminism. In Astrid Saalbach’s visual and often dystopian universes, women and men are equally affected by modernity. There are no feminine utopias in the original, funny and sharp-edged critique of civilisation provided by these extraordinary female playwrights.

Toward a new political theatre
Immediately after the turn of the millennium, something new once again occurred. A different quest for reality in drama tested the boundaries of theatre and created a political theatre that was intended to interact with political reality.

Most radical is the performance piece by Das Beckwerk in which the playwright/director Nielsen (formerly, Claus Beck-Nielsen) and his producer Rasmussen transformed the stage version of Parlamentet [The Parliament] into something transportable. They packed it up in a container and, in January 2004, walked across the border from Kuwait into Iraq, after the start of the war, to perform The Democracy – destination: Iraq on the streets and boulevards of Baghdad. Not exactly a comedy. Nevertheless, Nielsen and Rasmussen, dressed in suit and tie, making their way across the Iraqi desert represented two more of the dreamers with which Danish literature and theatre is so rich – now as a conscious performative ploy. Christian Lollike’s performances Voldtægt [Rape], Service Selvmord [Service Suicide] and Underværket [The Wonder] (the radio version was awarded the Prix Europe in 2006) kept within the boundaries of theatre space but insisted on the relationship between the stage and the hall. His dramatic texts often consist of quotations (ready-mades) that are made theatrical in a formidable poetic language. His performances approach the dramaturgy of an art exhibit. Both Nielsen and Lollike write and stage their own works in order to create a new performative reflection on important political questions.

In view of this ground-breaking renewal of political theatre, Jokum Rohde’s fascinating genre pastiches and philosophical dialogue belong to the more classical end of the new political theatre after the turn of the century.

With the establishment of a national Dramatist School in 1993, the Danish Ministry of Culture created a greenhouse for the new drama affiliated with neither the theatre academy nor a university but with one of the largest and most active theatres in the country, Århus Theatre. From here, a number of students, including Christian Lollike and Anna Bro, have made their mark.

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Janicke Branth,
Playwright and former head of the Dramatist School at Århus Theatre. Has taught dramaturgy and the history of the theatre.