Elling has lived in a psychiatric institution for two years, sharing a room with Kjell. Now the time has come for the two of them to take flight together and look for life to try to lead a life like that of any other citizen, in a sheltered apartment in the center of Oslo. Elling has a fanciful mind, inventing things to distract himself and his roommate, “an orangutan, a basic guy,” Elling de Kjell puts it. But he has affection for her, they have affection for each other, and they are both very excited about the challenge that the State poses to them.
With the subtitle of “Normality is overrated”, Elling begins performances this Saturday at La Villarroel (until April 14), with David Verdaguer and Albert Prat leading a cast completed by Queralt Casasayas, Òscar Muñoz and Albert Ribalta. The translation and direction is by Pau Carrió, who is simultaneously rehearsing Macbeth at the Teatre Lliure. The production of La Villarroel is based on the version that the British Simon Bent made of the novel by the Norwegian Ingvar Ambjørnsen.
Elling is a character who starred in a series of novels, from which stage and film adaptations came out. The film directed by Peter Naess was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film in the 2002 edition. The director of La Villarroel, Tania Brenlle, had had this project on the table for a long time, especially since Andrés Lima premiered his version in 2011. “It is a story of luminous friendship, written from the heart, in the author's words, full of trips and complicated situations,” says Brenlle.
Pau Carrió was clear that he had to propose the project to two actor friends, such as David Verdaguer and Albert Prat, members of the defunct company El Nacional No Ens Vol. “Friendship is something very primary,” declares Carrió. He had worked with them in Victòria d’ Enric V, at the Teatre Lliure (2014), where they were the jesters. A good part of his stage and vital complicity also passes on to the stage.”
“It is not easy to find beautiful stories – continues the director – and this one explains a friendship relationship through two characters who find their place in the world and relate to the world. That may seem very easy, but it is not at all, and not only for them, but for everyone. Their goals could also be my goals.”
In the flat work the question of what is normal and where normality is located. “The characters around Elling and Kjell also end up finding their place in the world, and that is pleasant and leaves you happy,” responds the director. They are two characters in the present, who ask that everything be resolved instantly, and they overcome their pain, always with light.”
About his character, David Verdaguer explains: “When I see theater, I get very emotional, and the older I get, the more I cry. In the case of Elling and Kjell, you identify not so much with the characters, but with the audience's empathy, which is focused on the desire for them to do well. They have problems, but in the play they don't talk about it. And they also talk about fiction, about the importance of inventing stories.”
Albert Prat clarifies: “They have always been told that they are not normal and it is a stigma that has been placed on them.” And Òscar Muñoz believes that the audience will identify with the characters' fears: “They have fears that we identify and that we can share. We are not very different from them.” And he adds: “This work belongs to a genre that I invented: the genre of good people.”
Albert Ribalta is a poet who stops writing and Elling helps him find answers. And Queralt Casasayas plays several roles, and in that of the upstairs neighbor she ends up finding love thanks to this couple. “You never know who helps who and who is the most normal,” concludes Verdaguer.
