EINKVAN

Coronet Theatre

★★★★★

“Fosse’s sparse poetic script strips life down to its essentials, matching the images on the screens”

Einkvan is a rare opportunity to see the work of Nobel prize winning playwright Jon Fosse in London. It’s also a chance to see it at the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill in the original Norwegian (or Nynorsk) complete with the talented cast and crew from Det Norske Teatret, who gave the world premiere of this play in Oslo in 2024. For the Coronet production, voiceovers are given in Nynorsk, with English subtexts appearing simultaneously on screen. And you’ll find plenty to focus on in a play that is both oddly isolating for the viewer, and intensely personal. “Einkvan” means Everyman in Norwegian, so there’s no escape from self reflection, as we follow the story of two aging parents trying desperately to maintain contact with a son who doesn’t want anything to do with them.

Throughout Einkvan, the focus is on the actors’ faces on the screens. These faces are unnaturally enlarged. We see every haunted gaze, every wrinkle, every tear. Director Kjersti Horn concentrates on these unnatural closeups, first of one actor, divided into two screens, then two actors, and most unnervingly, when one actor melts from his screen into the other, joining his companion. Water plays an important part in the images and in the words as well, whether it is the water that submerges the actors at times, to the father’s wistful memories of fishing with his boy. Fosse’s sparse poetic script strips life down to its essentials, matching the images on the screens. It’s an illuminating, as well as uncomfortable journey for all present in the theatre—an exploration to discover what really matters when life seems to offer nothing but loneliness. For the parents, it’s a distressing experience of never quite meeting their adult child, or connecting with him any more. For the child, it’s all about escaping those oppressive family ties, but escaping to what? Ultimately, Fosse seems to suggest that human bonds are not as important as one’s art, whether it’s drama or painting. Art is real, in a way that people can’t be. But depending on one’s age, or family circumstances, or even one’s art, each audience member’s journey throughout Einkvan is going to be a bit different. And, as mentioned before, all these close ups, in language, and image, are intensely personal.

The Coronet’s stage has been raised up to the level of the balcony for this production, and the space is dominated by an immense cube. Divided into two halves, the lower half of the cube is closed in by opaque curtains, lit from within and without. (Lighting design by Oscar Udbye). Throughout the performance, we see the dim outline of an actor moving back and forth. Above the curtains, are two large screens. The audience sit directly in front, and close to this oppressive, yet brilliantly conceived, set. (Set and costume design by Sven Haraldsson). The playing time is about right for a piece that drifts, rather than moves through the action. Given the intensity of the whole experience, Fosse and Horn have an acute sense of just how much the audience can bear.

After the show is over, and the actors appear on stage to great applause, there is one more surprise. If the audience was lulled into thinking that Einkvan was an evening in the cinema rather than the theatre, the appearance of the two younger actors completely soaked from their immersion in the on screen bathtub, eliminates that illusion. What we observed on the screens was a real time videotaping (directed by Mads Sjøgård Pettersen) of the action going on behind the opaque curtains. It’s a lovely reminder that live theatre is always taking place in the present. In film, what seems to be taking place in the present, has actually taken place in the past. It’s a fitting metaphor for Einkvan, where the actors and the audience explore the limits of memories, only to find that the present cannot save us from the fear of being alone in the world. And that this sense of loneliness only intensifies as one moves through life.

If you are up for such an experience, I heartily recommend Det Norske Teatret’s production of Jon Fosse’s Einkvan. Bring a friend. You will have much to discuss after the show in the Coronet Theatre’s lovely bar, and much to think about as you make your way home. It’s a show that will continue to haunt you, in your own company, or with others.

EINKVAN

Coronet Theatre

Reviewed on 8th May 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Previously reviewed at this venue:

PANDORA | ★★★★ | February 2025

STRANGER THAN THE MOON | ★★★ | December 2024

U-BU-SU-NA | ★★★★★ | November 2024

THE BELT | ★★★★★ | September 2024

THE BECKETT TRILOGY | ★★★★★ | June 2024

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER | ★★★ | September 2023

RHYTHM OF HUMAN | ★★★★★ | September 2023

LOVEFOOL | ★★★★ | May 2023

DANCE OF DEATH | ★★★★★ | March 2023

WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN | ★★★★ | March 2022

EINKVAN

★★★★★

“an exhilarating experience”

Vollmond, first premiered by Pina Bausch and her company Tanztheater Wuppertal in 2006, returns to Sadlers Wells in 2025. It is a welcome revival, following in the footsteps of the 2024 revival of Nelken. Once again, the Company assembles on stage to show us the essence of “tanztheater”—a unique creation of movement and dance that is Pina Bausch’ signature contribution to the world of dance. Beautifully costumed (design by Marion Cito), the dancers navigate Peter Pabst’s extraordinary set design. Vollmond is a wonderful, if often unsettling, way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Vollmond—the word means “full moon” in German—is a dance about emotions often associated with this particular phase of the moon. The emotion of love is a big theme in this show but it’s complex and often ironic. As everyone knows, full moons also have a particular association with high tides. It’s no surprise then, to find that water figures prominently in the show. Lots and lots of water. What Pina Bausch’s dancers do with that water, and how water gradually takes over Peter Pabst’s deceptively simple set is what surprises.

The work begins with dancers entering the space in pairs to make their moves on one another. Water is present, or rather absent, right from the start. Armed with empty water bottles, the dancers begin by making sounds by flinging the bottles about. Bottles are replaced with staves, and before we quite know it, we are in the middle of battles between various couples who court by confrontation. They push each other across the stage with kisses, or shake each other by the shoulders or the hair. They pour water into glasses, and then pour it out on each other. Water begins as a gentle rain falling from above. It flows as a shallow river gradually revealed that the dancers can swim in. By the end of the show, the rain has become an overwhelming torrent that drenches everything, including a vast boulder that looks as though it could outlast time itself. But as we know, water outlasts rock. And the emotions represented by all this water are somehow greater and longer lasting than the humans pushed and pulled by them.

It is inevitable that the dancers get wet. Nevertheless, they take an often childlike delight in the experience of being drenched—and drenching each other—that develops into a full scale water fight by the end of the show. And Pina Bausch focuses our attention on the way in which water changes the bodies that come into contact with it, and the costumes the dancers are wearing. Water ebbs and flows and we are caught up in the crazy beauty of it all.

What differentiates Vollmond from the earlier Nelken and its field of carnations, is that while carnations can be trampled and the dance space reclaimed for the dancers that inhabit it, the space here cannot. The dancers can only find ways to negotiate around and on that boulder, and in and on that water. The dance is this space is technically dangerous, and the dancers must navigate with care. It’s a fitting metaphor for the emotions that love—and full moons—produce. There is something deeply authentic about watching dancers play and struggle under the blazing lights that echo days and nights passing in a variety of seasons.

Vollmond is a less layered and ironic a show than Nelken perhaps, but it still demands the full attention of the audience. It is a piece focused on pairs of dancers, and long solos. Only once does the company assemble on stage for a moment in which all the dancers move in unison. With the music of Amon Tobin, the Balanescu Quartet, Cat Power, Carl Craig, June Miyake, Magyar Posse, Nenad Jelíc, René Aubry, and Tom Waits, the sound is as eclectic as its dance. An evening with Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal is an exhilarating experience, even if your imagination and your emotions go into overload and you end up as exhausted as the dancers. Unmissable.

EINKVAN

Coronet Theatre

★★★★★

“Fosse’s sparse poetic script strips life down to its essentials, matching the images on the screens”

EINKVAN

Coronet Theatre

Reviewed on 8th May 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Previously reviewed at this venue:

EINKVAN

EINKVAN

EINKVAN

VOLLMOND

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★★

“an exhilarating experience”

VOLLMOND

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Reviewed on 14th February 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Martin Argyroglo

Recently reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

VOLLMOND

VOLLMOND

VOLLMOND

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