Rejoice w. Trembling

Västerbottensteatern

The Ironworks
Friday 19th at 10pm / Saturday 20th at 4pm
£15 (concessions £10; early bird £12 and £8)
Also:
Spectrum 2
Monday 22nd at 1.30pm
£15 (concessions £10; early bird £12 and £8)

Artists: Greger Ottosson and Gunnar Eklund

Script: The artists and Torgny Lindgren

Music: Greger Ottosson and traditional

About the Artists

Both artists are experienced storytellers/actors greatly loved by the regional audience. Greger is also well known as a musician

and always mixes his storytelling with music. He plays both the harmonica and the accordeon.

Whilst Gunnar in general performs with written material (often by the famous Swedish author Torgny Lindgren) Greger mainly writes his own material. They have both performed with Scottish artists before. (Stuart McHardy and Heather Yule)

About the show

“Let's start from the beginning. A long time ago when God created the world there was a little spot left. He didn't know what to do with it so he said: It can become whatever it wants to become. And so it became the County of Västerbotten.

Some years pass and God decides he wants to know how the people live. And he looks at Västerbotten and realize that the people are rather confused. They walk around totally without a plan. So God decides to let the angel Gabriel go down to Västerbotten and ask some questions. First of all Gabriel meets Tailor Molin.

Molin had learnt tailoring in Jörn. But what he made was no good. An overcoat for Nylundius the preacher, the man who probably was the father of Isabella Stenlund's illegitimate boy; the coat was to small in the waist and far to broad over the shoulders. It was impossible to preach in it. And a coat for Sabina i Avabäck – it was so tight that Sabina couldn't button it up. And the black suit for Konrad Israelsson i Lakaberg; it was so badly cut that he only could wear it in church”.
 

The text above is the beginning of the performance “Rejoice with Trembling” – A mixture of stories in both English and in the Swedish dialect “Västerbottensbondska”. For those in the audience that are familiar with Scots the stories in Västerbottensbondska will to some extent be possible to understand. At least we hope so!

Facts about Västerbottensteatern

Västerbottensteatern is one of 18 regional theatres in Sweden. Västerbottensteatern was established as a regional theatre in 1980, formerly (since 1969) being a satellite ensemble of Riksteatern in Stockholm, located to Skellefteå.

The repertoire represents a mixture of contemporary and classical drama. The company has had great success with performances written by regional authors and playwrites where the audience does identify both with the content and the geography of the stories.

Västerbottensteatern constantly tour the region with productions of various formats. When touring with productions for children and youth we visit all 15 municipalities in the county. Our large productions can be received by eleven municipalities in the county. This means they have both a suitable stage and a local promoting organisation which we collaborate with in order to attract the local audience. Besides this large format we also produce smaller productions that we are able to present in some 50 venues around the county. Finally we have engaged a lot in producing storytelling performances over the years. The network of storytelling venues in Västerbotten includes more than a hundred places.

The core of the staff includes around 30 employees. One third artists, one third technicians and one third administrators. An average year we employ an additional 75 freelancers for various periods of time. They come from all over the country although the majority of our freelancers can be found in the north of Sweden.