Nigeria, Norway collaborate to recreate Ibsen’s Little Eyolf on stage
JOS Repertory Theatre is hosting the Norwegian performing actress, Kate Pendry and Audun Aschim, in a landmark performance of Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf
that is being staged as Cripplewolf.
With the sponsorship of SYV MIL and the support of the Norwegian and Brazilian embassies, the performances will be accompanied by drama and music workshops for one week leading up to a collaborative performance at the 16th Jos International Festival of Theatre 2025.
Speaking with The Guardian, the Artistic Director of Jos Repertory Theatre, Patrick - Jude Oteh, said, “the duo would be involved in the preliminary re- writing and re- reading of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder and Ghosts, two works by the Norwegian naturalist writer and philosopher that have continued to resonate in the world decades after their premiere.”
He continued: “The plays would be re- read and rewritten in Pidgin English by the workshop participants leading to full blown adaptations in the coming year before the Jos festival.” Studio musical recordings are also being planned with the scripts in attempts to make the plays more accessible and readable to the Nigerian public.
According to Oteh, “in their first trip to Nigeria, Pendry and Aschim will be exploring themes of love, parenthood, sexuality and death based on Ibsen’s play Little Eyolf now re- staged as Cripplewolf.”
Pendry, an award- winning actress, is known for using theatrical techniques to comment on contemporary social issues. She is very expresses biometric technology and extreme vocal ranges while Aschim explores the limits of the electric guitar to create an expressive sonic landscape. Aschim is a prolific guitarist and composer who works across music, film and performing arts.
In Cripplewolf, Pendry and Aschim push the boundaries of their artistic expressions.
They reinterpret Little Eyolf in a way that allows the female characters more nuance and complexity beyond traditional readings of Ibsen’s work.
“The performance combines scripted and improvised music and text,” said Oteh.
Pendry’s voice acts like another instrument while Aschim provides a filmic soundtrack through his guitar playing. Together, they create a mythopoetic space through sonic shadows from just two performers on stage.
Over the years, both have distinguished themselves as creative duet through transdisciplinary stage works to comment on the disharmonies of contemporary society.
Together they have produced several successful productions that blend “unperformable” subjects on stage with an accessible modern musical expression, taking the narratives into unpredictable spaces.
The workshops will find an intersection between local music and genres that will apart from emphasizsng Ibsen’s provocative theatre and progressive thought give rise to a resurgence of performance and dialogue on Ibsen’s plays in a country where such plays though available have not been regularly performed. The performances of Cripplewolf are critical because of human challenges that seem to create a complex fusion and vision of life at the most elemental level.
Workshops will be held to share experiences and chart a new revival in the production of Ibsen’s plays in Nigeria.
“In performing these plays, we will be engrossed by the ways of the individual mind, by the clash of personal temperament, by the endless and tragic conflict between the calls of duty and the search for happiness within the individual psyche. It is also envisaged that Ibsen’s plays will help to rekindle the spirit of community and dialogue as the basis for his existentialist thoughts and his philosophy so well embedded in our society especially his exposure of establishment folly, the castigation of social abuse and a cursory look at people who control others while looking at the nature of power to influence and impose,” revealed the theatre director.
The week long interaction promises to be a memorable one with expectations of an album recording, groundwork for Raise Am! in an Ibsenique, Nigerian and Norwegian- British theatre traditions and cross- cultural exchange.
The performances and workshops will hold from April 15 to 20 in different venues in Abuja. There will be a public performance of Cripplewolf at the Brazilian Embassy on Monday, April 15 at 6.00pm while the second performance will be a command performance for the diplomatic community.