Norway Plays: Drama Beyond Ibsen – Location, Tickets, Reviews
The Scandinavian Theater Company presents two, back-to-back, one-act plays by Norwegian playwrights in Norway Plays: Drama Beyond Ibsen. 
In the first play, The Returning, a married couple grieves the disappearance and presumed death of their only son, Gustav. They hold a proper funeral and soon life for the childless couple slips into normalcy until . . . a starved and disoriented Gustav unexpectedly comes stumbling through their door.
It’s a creepy comical play by Fredrik Brattberg that examines the consequences of taking things for granted.
In the second play, More by Maria Tryti Vennerød, a 16-year-old girl is murdered and the only suspect is her best friend–a mentally unstable, childlike girl, who insists she didn’t do it.
More probes the tension between thirsty media reporters seeking an interesting story, and police detectives seeking the truth. In this story, the law gradually gives way to media pressure and the detectives lose sight of their true objective. An eccentric show, More presents an over-the-top (or maybe entirely accurate) depiction of the perils of media sensationalism.
LOCATION
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue
New York City
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RUNNING TIME
2 hours and 5 minutes, one intermission
TICKETS
$30 (click here for tickets)
DATES
Performances through December 1, 2013
NEWS & REVIEWS
Reviews
Stage and Cinema
Many plays begin comically and end in tragedy. Rarely though does the trajectory go in the other direction, as it does with Fredrik Brattberg’s fascinating, multi-layered work The Returning. Maria Tryti Vennerød’s More, though not as strong or interesting a play as The Returning, gets a much more exciting staging by director Joan Kane.
Theatre Is Easy
Both plays share a lot of similarities. Both center on death, both have very cynical views of human responses to tragedy, and both are darkly comic and at times absurd.
CAST & CREW
(partial list)
THE RETURNING
Written by Fredrik Brattberg
Directed by Henning Hegland
Featuring Ingrid Kullberg-Bendz, Andrew Langton, and Kristoffer Tonning
MORE
Written by Maria Tryti Vennerød
Directed by Joan Kane
Featuring Christina Toth, Skyler Volpe, Chevy Kaeo Martinez, Erik Schjerven, Alexandra Cohen Spiegler, and Ioan Ardelean