Gritt Uldall-Jessen: Surviving Peder Paars

Holberg update in Kokkedal

Egedalsvænge in Kokkedal.

The dramatist Gritt Uldall-Jessen has been invited to create a performance in Kokkedal. Together with the artist Mahmoud Alibadi, she will take her starting point in the classical poem of ”Peder Paars. Et comisk heltedigt” from 1719-20 by Ludvig Holberg. The piece will be performed in the housing projects around Egedalsvænge. The stage is mobile, a handcart in the form of a theatre platform, which can be pulled from place to place. The stage has red curtains with flounces. The material is wood to contrast the concrete the apartment buildings are made of.

Each the day of playing period, an excerpt from Peder Paars will be performed from the mobile stage. The staging will take place with one or more of local citizens as performers.

The amateur performers will participate in a series of workshops, where the text will be analyzed. In addition, a speech coach will teach the group the prosody and diction of Holberg’s poem and teach them to present the text correctly. During the playing period, the the theatre cart will follow a carefully planned route in and around Kokkedal, pulled by Gritt Uldall-Jessen and Mahmoud Alibadi. Different stops will be marked as the places, where the text of the day is to be presented.

Along the route, dramatic effects will be introduced and played out in the housing project. For example, water could be thrown out of a cellar way, barrels could be rolling down a slope, or colored light could be thrown up against a wall etc. These effects will turn the apartment buildings into a site, which is part of the set design for the performance of Peder Paars. The effects will support the plot in the individual verses of the poem.

Surviving Peder Paars på TV

Surviving Peder Paars will be part of a co-operation with the local tv-station, where the daily performances of a verse of the Peder Paars-poem will be transmitted live. The dramatic effects will interrupt the tv-transmission, so that the transmission itself will also turn into a “site” or a fellow player of the performance of Peder Paars.

Alibadi reads Holberg. Photo: Gritt Uldall-Jessen