Ibsen's WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN From The Norwegian Ibsen Company and The Coronet Theatre

The Coronet Theatre will again collaborating with The Norwegian Ibsen Company on a new production of Ibsen's last play When We Dead Awaken. Ibsen was inspired by a painting of the same name by Edvard Munch, and, as always, this piece is strongly influenced by nature and the landscape of Norway.

It is directed by Kjetil Bang-Hansen, one of Norway's most celebrated directors.
When We Dead Awaken is at The Coronet 24 February to 2 April 2022.

"When We Dead Awaken is a strange, beautiful and bitter play about art, love, ambition and freedom. Like a musical quartet, 4 people, 4 elements, 4 voices, 4 instruments play different songs in a complicated melody. It is a play for our time,as they find themselves living in a changed world. Bewildered, how do they move forward?" Director Kjetil Bang-Hansen

The Norwegian Ibsen Company returns, in collaboration with The Coronet Theatre, with a new adaptation of When We Dead Awaken, Henrik Ibsen's enigmatic final play, directed by one of Norway's most celebrated directors Kjetil Bang-Hansen, following the award winning The Lady From The Sea in 2019.

It is rare that anyone gets the chance to rediscover a lost love.

In the depths of a winter Rubek, once a celebrated sculptor, returns to Norway with his estranged young wife Maia - only to encounter, by chance, his great lost love and muse Irene. Is this their opportunity to return to a world where there is meaning, hope and happiness - to awaken from the dead?

The production is directed by eminent director Kjetil Bang-Hansen, in his first production in the UK. It will have a Norwegian/British cast, and be performed in a mixture of Norwegian and English with surtitles. The production will tour Norway after its UK Premiere - The Coronet Theatre's first international tour.

The cast includes Norwegian stars Ragnhild Gudbrandsen, Andrea Bræin Hovig and Øystein Røger. Biographies below.

When We Dead Awaken has been considered the drama that draws together the threads from Ibsen's other plays and from Ibsen ́s own drama - his life. Published in 1899, its first performances were at the Haymarket Theatre in London

"The production brings with it an inherent knowledge of Norwegian culture, where Ibsen is celebrated both for his insight into the human condition, and for bringing to his work the humour and biting irony people use to get through the most difficult situations."
Kåre Conradi, Artistic Director of The Norwegian Ibsen Company

Kjetil Bang-Hansen is one of the most revered and accomplished directors in Europe. During
a career spanning over 60 years he was appointed Artistic Director of The National Theatre of Norway, been the recipient of every major theatre award in Norway and many in Europe, and published several books and writings about the art of theatre directing and stagecraft. He has directed When We Dead Awaken twice before, in 1990 at Theatre National de Strasbourg and in 1994 at Nationaltheatret in Oslo. His many productions include Ibsen's Peer Gynt and A Doll's House; Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Coriolanus; and contemporary British work by Harold Pinter, Michael Frayn and David Hare. Dramatizations of novels include Fjodor Dostojevskijs Crime and Punishment and Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Kjetil has undoubtedly made one of the most significant contributions to theatre in Norway in the last century as he continues to create new work and direct.

Set and Costumes by Mayou Trikerioti.

The Norwegian Ibsen Company collaborated with The Coronet Theatre in February 2019 with The Lady From The Sea, which followed the UK's first visit by the Norwegian National Theatre with Little Eyolf in 2018, also in collaboration with The Norwegian Ibsen Company. Both were acclaimed by both critics and audience. Ibsen is the most performed dramatist in the world after Willian Shakespeare. However, Norway did not have a professional Ibsen Company until ten years ago, when one of Norway's leading actors, Kåre Conradi, founded The Norwegian Ibsen Company. Its aim is, by producing Ibsen's work in both Norwegian and English, to create a theatrical bridge with the rest of the world and Ibsen's homeland.

When We Dead Awaken is presented with the support of the Norwegian Embassy.

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