Kristofer Grønskag: I want us to investigate something and explore together

May 3, 2019

The festival Kloden i sentrum is approaching, and we talked to the artistic council about their visions for Kloden, their thoughts on performing arts for children and young people, and about Kloden i sentrum.

First up is Kristofer Blindheim Grønskag. He is a playwright and has written a number of stage texts for children, youth and adults. Grønskag was the resident playwright at Dramatikkens hus in 2014-2015 and is part of the performing arts community Propellen Teater in Trondheim. His texts have been translated into over 10 different languages, and he was nominated for the Ibsen Prize in both 2018 and 2019.

What do you hope/think the Globe will become? 

I want a theater to feel vital, open and brave. It would be great if we could create a theater house where young people feel at home. A place that is as good, natural and present to go to as other places. A place where performing artists can meet the audience openly, with interaction and dialog. That would be a dream. And I think you can do that with Kloden, by creating a place that feels vital to them.  

It will also be of great importance for performing artists, where it can be a production platform, a place where you can meet others and work together to create and be an industry community. There aren't as many natural meeting places when you work with young people as a target group, so it feels like a need.  

Your texts are set up in several places, have you traveled and seen and thought about how your texts are interpreted? 

I almost always travel to see the texts being performed, even though I get very nervous. It feels important to be in dialog with the artwork and the viewers, especially in art for children and young people. Counting to Zero was staged in around 30 different versions through DUS. "When I saw the different productions, I was really struck by my own text, it was incredibly fascinating and one of the most educational things I've done. The young people found it interesting to discuss the text, and I saw what resonated with the young performers, which can be something completely different from what resonates with adult performers. I get hopeful when I see young people doing that text.  

What about how the text is interpreted on stage in other countries? 

Yes, it's difficult to know what are cultural differences and what are aesthetics. The biggest difference has been in the portrayal of characters, how real or stylized it is done. In Germany and the Netherlands, there is often some transparency between the role and the person portraying it, which suits my texts well. The other big difference is how free they have been in their approach to the text: I rarely want the text to be the leading element. Satellites in the sky is written to meet openly, and the productions that have met the text in this way have been the most successful, I think.  

What strategies and choices do you make when writing drama for young audiences?  

It's important for me not to write mimetically, not to imitate them, but rather to try to write situations that can resonate with the target audience. I often think of something Jesper Halle has written about Lilleskogen, which is a play where adults play children. He writes about acting style at the beginning, where it says "Don't play children. For joy is joy, sorrow is sorrow, no matter what age you are." That comes back to me.  

The artwork must acknowledge children and young people's way of seeing the world, and go in and explore the world with them. I don't like texts where adults have learned something important about the world and then just pass it on to young people. I'd rather we investigate something together, explore together and be silly and curious together. 

I rarely plan a plot. It often starts with an image and then I take it from there. Roy Anderson and his films are a big source of inspiration for me. In Counting to Zero , there's a scene where four young people are in a field, they've just shot a cow and are standing over the dead cow. I remember when I got that image, and then I have to go in and try to explain the potential of that image and that situation. Then more and more comes.

What are you looking forward to about Kloden in the center?  

It's a thematically exciting program, broad, honest, and with groups that have a burning desire to create something good for children and young people. I hope I'll have time to be there and meet the audience. 

Photo from Push+ lab in Edinburgh. Photographer: Jassy Earl.