The Melbourne Review

Oddest of couples

November 2012

Film and television has featured plenty of odd couples over the decades – from Oscar and Felix in the original Odd Couple to the adventures of Abbott and Costello – but Simon Bent’s stage adaptation of the Norwegian motion picture Elling takes the cake in unlikely pairings. Directed by Pamela Rabe and starring Darren Gilshenan, this brand new MTC production (designed especially for the Melbourne stage) celebrates the simple things in life, in the oddest way possible.

“The film was itself actually an adaptation of a series of successful novels in Norway in the 90s,” Rabe says. “Our adaptation has a lot of the themes of the film script and it’s based in the same location, but it’s been housed within one space on the stage which is quite magically designed by Christina Smith. The film itself was very successful, it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Picture in 2001, but this next incarnation by Simon Bent, an English writer, is filtered through as an English-speaking performance, which makes it yet another beast again. Having said that, the stage production of Elling has been performed all across Europe, and from looking at the photos, each production looks completely different to another.”

While well-known Australian actor Darren Gilshenan takes on the lead role of Elling himself, Hayden Spencer plays his equally-quirky sidekick, Kjell Bjarne, with additional support from Ronald Falk as a once-famous poet who’s hit hard times and Bert LaBonte as social worker Frank Asli. Playing a series of different female roles through the play, Emily Goddard takes on the character of the upstairs neighbour, Reidun Nordsletten, as well as Gunn and Johanne, among others. The strength of the play lies in the strange but loveable nature of its two main characters, according to Rabe, and is something that the audience is sure to be drawn to.

“There is a joy about the piece as a whole. It’s fantastic in the way that it’s made up of different married parts and components which accumulate and snowball and finally take us to a place where we don’t know how we got there at all. We realise that we’ve somehow invested in the survival of these two guys because the truth is that we recognise ourselves and our own anxieties and fears and self-made obstacles in these characters. Their behaviour may be amplified in many ways, but on a more subtle level, these themes are not at all foreign to most people. For example, they’re dealing with amplifications of anxieties like some of us get when the phone rings and not wanting to answer it, or when someone knocks on your door who you don’t want to talk to, or the pressures of living in a big city.”

Although audiences are very likely to relate to some of the themes explored in Elling, Rabe says they may not necessarily relate to the plot itself. After spending years in an asylum, Elling and Kjell are given a leave pass as a test to see if they’re able to survive in the real world after being granted an apartment and becoming roommates. While the character of Elling is a super-smart, super-sensitive poet who likes to sleep in his wardrobe and write in his notebook, Kjell is a hotdog-eating, sex-obsessed 40-year old virgin.

“The play sits inside the mind of this glorious, vulnerable, flawed, funny character called Elling who is just trying to survive in the modern world. He’s got some serious mummy issues after his mother died and that sent him into a tail spin and, as a result, a mental care facility where he is put. Because he’s lived his whole life with his mother, he’s never been outside and he’s got some OCD tendencies… but he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Kjell and you get to see their adventures throughout the rest of the play, where they try to prove to themselves and the Norwegian authorities they can live independently.

“Having said that, it’s a great little play through which people can filter their concerns. We’ve created quite an Australian version of it and we deal with it in our own way. Aussies also have a particular approach to comedy and we have a good understanding of the camaraderie between men. We barrack for the underdog and that’s what these two are.”

Elling shows at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, until December 8.

mtc.com.au

Other Articles You May Like

Galleries

Latest Edition

February Issue

January Issue

December Issue

Video

Twitter

Facebook