Jon is a young man who has moved into a dorm in a housing block by a watercourse. Suddenly, on an autumn day, the phone rings.
Suddenly he imagined something; they who are calling. It is the confused and clueless, they are after me too, he thought. Open from all angles.
The call takes Jon down the stairs, out of the house and further into an existential wandering in a disturbing and fascinating landscape, where the inner and outer reality slides in and out of each other.
The Fire from 1961 is known as one Tarjei Vesaas’ most mysterious novels. Here, folk poetry and modernism meets; the horror movie and the journey of formation. The deep ecological descriptions of nature and human reminds us about all that is at stake today. Its universe is surreal, frightening and symbolic.
This was the first time De Utvalgte produced a play for the Norwegian National Theatre, where they challenged the whole theatre machinery and made an atmospheric total theatre where image, word and sound is equal. The play was accompanied by newly composed electro acustic music. The character Jon was interpreted by Helene Naustdal Bergsholm.
“One should not write in a way that is understood with a cold heart. There should be a certain part that the reader only can feel on the inside. The reader must have the possibility to open their own secret rooms…” wrote Vesaas on The Fire.
From reviews:
De Utvalgte transforms Vesaas’ most mysterious novel into a unique theatre play (…) a visually spectacular interpretation made to lose ones breath, Kjersti Juul, Vårt Land
A greater visual art experience at a theater is hard to find. Karen Frøsland Nystøyl, NRK
A beautiful, suggesting and deeply disturbing tale about human vulnerability. Hedda Fredly, Dagbladet
Technological triumph. When technology enforces the actors scenic presence, this theater experience is no less than overwhelming. Ragnhild Tronstad, Scenekunst.no