Torvald
Ibrahim Fazlic Productions
TORVALD
Since the play about my home had its premiere in 1879, I have been vilified as the biggest misogynist in Norwegian literature and theater history. When the play was performed in Germany, they also changed the Ctle from being about my home to being about my ex-wife.
It is time for my voice to be heard.
I am Torvald, I am diversity listen carefully
because I have a lot on my mind.
TORVALD – a masculine mancave monologue from a middle-aged man in midlife crisis.
From a basement den, this interactive monologue performance celebrates and examines masculinity, caring and male spaces. The project is based on the character Torvald from A Doll’s House and places him in the present. In the evenings, when he is alone in his villa, he descends into his basement and unleashes his manhood.
In this project, Ibrahim Fazlic searches for the constructive masculine. In the name of representation and inclusion, the role of Torvald is played by a white, heterosexual, middleaged, cis-male actor without functional variation, who is read by others as, and is, only Norwegian.
What can we learn about the man behind «the white man pushing fifty»? And not least, what can he teach us?
As the audience enters Torvald’s basement, they make his irrelevant voice relevant again.
TORVALD has received a scholarship from Ibsen Scope and the jury writes, among other things: “During the Ibsen Scope jury’s existing years, hundreds of applications have come in to set up different versions of the story of Nora’s liberation from male dominance and oppressive gender roles. It is therefore a very welcome surprise that the Norwegian actor and playwright Ibrahim Fazlic has focused on the main male character in A Doll’s House, namely the abandoned husband Torvald, in this project”
Ibrahim Fazlic is a stage artist and playwright. He has been the house dramatist at Dramatikkens hus from 2019 until 2023 and has previously created the performances Prty Lyf and En Muslimsk Afro-Joik på Svensk i Norge.
In the Spring 2022 Fazlic premiered at Black Box teater with Mother Masochist, where he examined the dominant and suffering role of the mother. Now it is high time that the father and the white fifty-year-old man is the one put under the microscope. Welcome down to TORVALD’s basement.
Credit list:
Playwright and director og regissør: Ibrahim Fazlic
Concept: Henrik Ibsen and Ibrahim Fazlic
Producer: Hanna Kanutta Helstad
Actor: Harald Kolaas
In the room: Eilif Fjeld
Technician: Thomas Gallagher
Dramaturg: Eirik Fauske
Dramaturg, Dramatikkens Hus: Kristina Kjeldsberg
Co-prodused: Grenland Friteater and Black Box Teater
Supported by: Fritt ord, Fond for utøvende kunstnere, Ibsen Scope, Fond for lyd og bilde, Kulturrådet and Dramatikkens Hus.
