FringeReview UK 2024
Utoya
Arcola Theatre, Riva Theatre and ZAVA Productions
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, European Theatre, Historical, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre, Tragedy, Translation
Venue: Arcola Theatre, Riva Theatre and ZAVA Productions
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
“Something broke that day, and it can’t be fixed.” Edoardo Erba’s Utoya, written in 2014, reaches its English-language premiere at the Arcola’s Studio 2 translated by Marco Young and directed by Sarah Stacey till August 31st.
Compelling, and an important UK premiere.
Writer Edoardo Erba Utoya Translated by Marco Young, Directed by Sarah Stacey, Norwegian Consultant Runa Røstad Augdal, Set & Costume Designer Caitlin Mawhinney, Lighting Designer Catja Hamilton, Sound Designer Jamie Ku, Production & Stage Manager Fae Hochgemuth
Marketing Manager & Content Creator Megan Gibbons, Artwork, Photography and Videographer Mariano Gobbi, Riva Theatre and ZAVA Productions
Till August 31st.
Review
“Something broke that day, and it can’t be fixed.” Some of us remember where we were on July 22nd 2011 when first images of an explosion in Oslo, killing eight, was followed by reports of the mass murder of 69 young socialists on Utoya island. Edoardo Erba’s Utoya, written in 2014, reaches its English-language premiere at the Arcola’s Studio 2 translated by Marco Young and directed by Sarah Stacey till August 31st.
Already receiving performances in German (2016) and Greek earlier this year, Erba asks us to “imagine being on the side of the black hole, but not in it”. Two 2018 films – Paul Greengrass’s 22 July and Erik Poppe’s Utøya: July 22 – inevitably tackle atrocities head-on. Erba’s work necessarily avoids that, probing more obliquely. The perpetrator is explicitly unnamed by one character, but the black hole remains.
Two actors, Kate Reid, and the play’s translator Marco Young, perform across three relationships, all pulled into what venomous ideology lies in that hole. In each couple there’s continual reference to, later othering of “Muslims”, “blacks”, a festering current throughout.
On the Arcola’s intimate stage Caitlin Mawhinney’s set of two chairs and table features the latter fissured with a jagged gap – characters, national and other gulfs register too. Surrounded by Catja Hamilton’s rectangular neon strip, it underscores stark separations with blackouts. Jamie Ku’s evocatively understated sound is limited to phone-calls, synched to Hamilton’s lighting. Which plocks like an illumination of news and terror.
The three relationships thread through the day with an epilogue a month later. Reid and Young nuance subtly different voices, sometimes very well, evoking class, education and professionally-serrated edges to their accents. They’re not acutely differentiated, avoiding stereotyping, which mostly works. Character is invoked, but bleached of the kind of empathising pull to identify with anyone for long in this hurtling 70-minute piece.
First, a married couple (Malin, Gunnar) whose daughter has been sent by socialist but philandering husband to Utoya against her more conservative mother’s wishes. They desperately await a call. Then an abusively-edged relationship between a policeman (Alf) and his female junior (Unni) whose instinct is to act. Finally a brother and sister (Inga, Petter) in an isolated farmhouse where the ailing sister’s chilling ”respect” means resolute refusal to let her lazy but more curious, open-minded brother investigate their strange neighbour.
Each character negotiates an imminent separation. Gunnar is unsympathetic because dismissive of Malin’s desire for a cat, but Malin is the more racist and makes assumptions. Inga too wants to close down any curiosity her brother Petter broaches, and has assumptions not far removed from Malin: so much so she rejected a Moroccan man she was very attracted to, and regrets it. But there’s more to perplex her now, beyond her brother’s slovenly ways and refusal to look after himself.
Alf is a multi-layered reactionary. Erba doesn’t hesitate to give Unni ammunition when in the aftermath she notes how racist assumptions by the police in general contribute to disastrous decisions. As tensions build Alf and Unni keep receiving terrified cut-off calls. They have no authorisation, but have guns. Unni knows what must be done. Meanwhile Malin and Petter try everything; Petter edges closer to a van.
The production’s subtle and penetrating. There might have been slightly more differentiation between characters but they’re clearly delineated enough, even without donning spectacles. The dynamics Stacey builds with her cast is both appalling and visceral.
None of these endings are predictable – redemptions or separations. As an absorption of tragedy, of the scalloped edge of prejudice drawn in Inga’s words, it chills even the stark moment of truth. “I’ve got goosebumps. One of us. It’s horrendous… I would’ve preferred it to be a Muslim” says Unni, underscoring denial and how Erba’s black hole stays open. Compelling, and an important UK premiere.
