Outstanding and Highly Relevant Reviews for the German Premiere States of Emergency

Outstanding and Highly Relevant Reviews for Transiteatret-Bergen's German Premiere and Guest Performances in Berlin and Potsdam

"The Countdown of Terror"

"A theatre performance brings the state of emergency back to the stage – without relying on shock effects."

"On 22 July 2011, the right-wing extremist ABB murdered 69 people on the Norwegian island of Utøya. Heavily armed, he spent more than an hour hunting down young people attending a summer camp. That can be summed up in two sentences. Yet those sentences say little or nothing about what actually happened – about the despair, the disorientation, or the paralysing shock of a state of emergency. On Thursday evening, at the Schinkelhalle, audiences could sense what this must have felt like."

"There is no blood to be seen, no screams to be heard. The horror becomes far more subtle, yet all the more deeply affecting." (...)

"As for its form, one can say this: harrowing theatre unfolds before our eyes. There is no make-believe, and the performance never conceals its own theatrical means."

(...) "With this production, UNIDRAM demonstrates unmistakably that—even after thirty years as a festival—it remains firmly at the forefront."

Tagesspiegel – Lena Schneider

"What a profoundly moving evening, what a collective Gesamtkunstwerk."

"On UNIDRAM's second festival evening, over the course of nearly three and a half hours, Norwegian playwright and director Tore Vagn Lid delved into his country's national trauma."

"From the moment one enters the Schinkelhalle, one is immersed in a state of emergency—one familiar since 9/11. A state of emergency that, through the web of global media, repeatedly unfolds according to the same pattern."

"This shocking and deeply moving evening consists of a series of strikingly different sequences. In the section devoted to Utøya, it becomes clear that Tore Vagn Lid's foremost aim is to erect a memorial to the victims."

Textur – Astrid Priebs-Tröger

Photo: Lea Röwer