Review: THE NAME at White Bear

The Nobel laureate’s work leans heavily into his rugged west coast Scandic roots with plays often set in remote rural locales. Like his better known countryman Ibsen, conversations are often more about what is not said, (or is inferred) through pregnant pauses, truncated sentences, repeated phrases and awkward silences, so for those who prefer their drama at the bubbling cauldron end of the spectrum, the perpetual Nordic simmer, may prove challenging.

A heavily pregnant young woman (Jasmin Dufa Pitt) with limited funds and options, has returned to her parents’ home where she is joined by her boyfriend (Daf Thomas), the apparent father of her unborn child. He reads a lot while she describes the relative weirdness of her family members and berates him for not caring. They don’t gel especially well and there seems to be an emotional disconnect. Her sister (Maria Thorseth Molnes) is excited by the return but quickly falls into old resentful sibling patterns while her mother (Valerie Gogan) is preoccupied with a painful foot. Her father (Tony Bell) drifts in and out of scenes seemingly in control of very little, perhaps even his own faculties. Much is uttered, often repeatedly, but very little is actually said. Individual opinions on specific topics, go unexpressed or are deliberately avoided in favour of knowing obfuscation. It’s all terribly self-conscious and in truth, a little tedious unless you’re a fan of the amusingly dour style and enjoy dredging for hidden meaning amidst the mundanities which are proffered.

When tall, handsome and much-mentioned Bjarne (Jan Martin) finally pays a visit to the house late in the play, it is ostensibly to reacquaint himself with his former playmate. Their instant familiarity, mutual attraction and overt physical interplay, appears less in the past than either they (or anyone else) imagined. It sets-up an awkward and stilted tone to proceedings, which is essentially where matters are left… somewhat suspended… without necessarily requiring a conclusion. And so the audience nervously applauds after a little prompting. 

Everyone will point to the fact that Fosse is the most performed Norwegian playwright after Ibsen and that the Nobel Academy bestowed their highest literary award upon him. But those facts aside, the end result (for someone with a non-Scandic disposition), is second rate absurdism with neither Beckett’s wit nor Pinter’s underlying jeopardy. 

THE NAME continues at The White Bear until 6th June and plays straight through with a running time of nearly 2 hours.