Theatre
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Art Being Consumed At The Grapevine Office This Week
We’d be preaching from an ivory tower if we didn’t have boots on the ground, ingesting and processing the cultural events we love to tell you about. This week, we’ve got two theatre and one concert review in stock. For aspiring theatre-lovers,…
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Power In Numbers
Theatre collective Afturámóti takes over Háskólabíó The atmosphere in Háskólabíó is buzzing with excitement as Reykjavík’s latest performance collective Afturámóti prepares to open their doors for the first time. Based out of the 60-year-old defunct movie theatre, the collective platforms rising talent…
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Beyond Language: Theatre Production ‘Umbra’ Speaks to Audiences Without Words
Finding English-language theatre performances in Iceland has always presented a challenge, but a new production at Tjarnarbíó seeks to bypass the issue of language altogether—by not including any. ‘Umbra’ (‘Hríma’ in Icelandic) is described by its creators as a “visually pleasing tragi-comedy,”…
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Øland At The National Theatre
I’m sitting at a marble table across from Katrín Gunnarsdóttir in the café of the National Theatre. She is one of the performers for Øland, an avant-garde dance performance three years in the making. “I think we’re all very excited,” she says…
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Reykjavík Fringe Festival: Open That Mother-Fringing Curtain
Last year’s Reykjavík Fringe Festival blew the roof off of Iceland’s alternative theatre scene, and this year, it’s back—bigger, and fringier, than ever. “We have around 100 shows spanning 265 hours of performances happening over just six days,” beams Jessica LoMonaco, production…
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The Resonance Of Things: A Thousand Tongues Comes To Reykjavík
Having the chance to see a beautiful mind at work is not something that happens often. I’m not merely talking about intelligence, but the intricacy of thoughts—the paths that words take within someone’s mind before they cascade out of their mouth like…
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Time Capsule: The National Theatre Of Iceland
The National Theatre of Iceland is one of Reykjavík’s finest and most long-lived art institutions. It’s hard to miss: the building has an inviting atmosphere, with a baronial structure and classic red carpet on the inside. Opened in April 1950 and designed…
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No Hyperbole: ‘Journey To The Center Of The Earth: The Musical’ Is The Best
Musicals are a divisive subject, especially for those whose only exposure to the genre has been the film adaptation of ‘Les Misérables’ or their grandmother blasting Sarah Brightman’s version of “Memory” from ‘Cats’. That said, you cynical happiness haters, open your mind,…
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Kristín Eiríksdóttir: The Freedom Of Being On An Island
Kristín Eiríksdóttir published her first book when she was 22, a collection of short prose poetry and drawings, and has been publishing every other year for the past 12 years now, churning out everything from short stories to novels to plays. She…
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How to Become Icelandic in 60 Minutes: Rude, Drunk and Boundlessly Optimistic
Are Icelanders just like everyone else or are they a little, well… special? This show, which purports to teach you how to become Icelandic, addresses what constitutes particularly Icelandic behaviour. All the obvious stuff is here. We eat sheep’s balls (although this…
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Blast from the Past: The Comedy Ban of 1940
Like most countries, Iceland has a long and illustrious history of censorship. A fun example can be found in the annals of 1940, when chief of police Agnar Kofod-Hansen announced that after having spoken to witnesses who had attended the dress rehearsal…
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Down Pat: Dancer And Choreographer Katrín Gunnarsdóttir On Her Latest Piece
Katrín Gunnarsdóttir’s bare feet pat the plexiglass mirror on stage. It’s the only sound in the theater. The patter quickens with her pace, she starts to breathe louder, louder, louder, faster, and then cut. The movement changes. The theatre goes gentle again.…
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Drunk Tourist Arrested For Climbing Theatre
The wee hours of Saturday morning were a rollicking good time for one tourist, who ended up having a little too much fun and got himself arrested. RÚV reports that the man, who was highly intoxicated, took the decision to scale the…
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STRIPP: Discussing Women’s Role In Society And On Stage
“I found the strip club where I worked to be like a micro version of the world we live in, with the exchange of money, hierarchies and greed, only in a much smaller sense,” Olga Sonja Thorarensen, a dancer and actress, tells…
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Experience This Amazing Living Artwork, While You Still Can
“Phoenix – Reykjavík Edition” is an interactive theatre/live-art crossover experience, in which participants walk, one at a time and eight minutes apart, along a planned trail through a little-used harbour area just outside of downtown Reykjavík. Along the way, participants wear a…
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Happening Tonight: ‘KATE’
The arrival of British troops in WWII heralded a new age for the Icelandic people, as is told in the tragi-comedic theatrical performance ‘KATE’. It tells the story of an Icelandic family, their wayward daughter Selma, and their foster daughter, Kate—two young…
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The Brits Are Coming! Again!
The British Occupation that started in 1940 has certainly been dealt with a lot in Icelandic culture, as we at the Grapevine have previously discussed. Just this year, one of Iceland’s most popular crime fiction writers, Arnaldur Indriðason, set his latest novel…
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Body Talk: A Dancer And An Actress Converse, Prepare To Shake Things Up
Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir and Erna Ómarsdóttir are performers who, although their reputations precede them, are too busy making quality work to spend much time bathing in the limelight. In fact, they may very well be the kinds of creative forces that a nation…
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Barry And His Guitar Are In Iceland
The third production of the one-man show “Barry And His Guitar” has arrived in Reykjavík. After a successful year in London the show will launch in Iceland at Mengi tonight, January 2. The production charts the unfortunate tale of a young musician, Barry, whose…
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Remembrance and Re-Remembrance
Following the astounding success of their last collaboration, “Dansaðu fyrir mig,” (‘Dance for Me’), collaborators (and fiances) Pétur Ármannsson and Brogan Davison have used their new show “Petra” to reapproach some of the former show’s more fertile topics—artistic creation and family—while also dipping into…
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Forgiveness For Sale!
In a TV ad that did the rounds on the usual social networking sites in early January, Forgiveness Inc. promised its would-be clients a clean conscience and a bright future. The ad sparked heated debates about the company’s authenticity and the services…
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LÓKAL
Iceland’s first and only professional theatre festival, Lókal, will take place in Reykjavík for the second time at the start of September (note: the Act Alone festival in Ísafjörður, while being an international theatre fest, only caters to monologues). The festival brings…
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Guerilla Theatre of the Absurd
“So there’s this chef and this hotel reception clerk. And they’re just standing in the middle of Kringlan. One is standing on top of a planter and the other one is on the ground. And their poses look like something out of…