Elling has lived for two years in a psychiatric institution, sharing a room with Kjell. Now the time has come for both of them to take flight together and find their lives to try to lead a life like that of any other citizen, in a protected apartment in the center of Oslo. Elling has a fanciful head, who invents things to distract himself and to distract his roommate, “an orangutan, a basic guy”, says Kjell’s Elling. But they love him, we love each other, and they are both very excited about this 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 at the head of a cast completed by Queralt Casasayas, Òscar Muñoz and Albert Ribalta . The translation and direction is by Pau Carrió, who is also rehearsing Macbeth at 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.
L’Elling is a character who starred in a series of novels, from which theatrical and cinematographic adaptations were made. The film directed by Peter Naess was a candidate for the Oscar for the best film not in the English language in the 2002 edition. The director of La Villarroel, Tania Brenlle, had this project on the table for some time , especially since Andrés Lima premiered his version in 2011. “It’s a luminous friendship story, written with the heart, in the words of the author, full of obstacles and complicated situations”, says Brenlle.
Pau Carrió was immediately 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 Teatre Lliure (2014), where they acted as jesters. Much of his scenic and vital complicity also happens on stage”.
“It’s not easy to find beautiful stories – continues the director – and this one explains a relationship of friendship through two characters who find their place in the world and relate to the world. This may sound very easy, but it is not at all, and not only for them, but for everyone. Their goals could also be my goals.”
The work raises 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’s nice and makes you happy – replies the director-. They are two characters in the present, who ask that everything be resolved at the moment, and overcome their pains, always with light”.
About his character, David Verdaguer explains: “When I see theatre, I get very emotional, and the older I get, the more I cry. In the case of Elling and Kjell, you don’t identify so much with the characters, as with the audience’s empathy, which is focused on the desire that things go well for them. They both have problems, but they don’t talk about them in the play. And they also talk about fiction, about the importance of inventing”.
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 thinks 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 the role of the upstairs neighbor, he ends up finding love thanks to this couple. “You never know who helps whom and who is the most normal”, concludes Verdaguer.