The Gothenburg Theatre Spectator

I have been to a lot of plays over the years but not that many dress rehearsals. The ones I have been to have been pretty much the same as going to see the play. That was what I expected at the dress rehearsal for Pär Lagerkvist's Dvärgen, The Dwarf, at Gothenburg City Theatre on September 19th. That is not what we got. After one hour, the director Askhan Ghod stopped the performance, "That's enough. We will stop there." And then he and the sole actor in the play, Jesper Söderblom spoke to us about the development of the script, the acquisition of the rights to perform the play and the preparations for it. The first thing that the audience sees is the grotesque drawings of Prince Leone, his wife Teodora,  their daughter Angelica, Teodora's lover Don Riccardo, the Prince's arch enemy il Toro among others. The powerful are symbolically large and gradually it becomes apparent that their images reflect the sentiments of the little person at the center of th...