MANIFEST 2083

author: Christian Lollike
theatre/ensemble: S/H, Copenhagen

seen on the 29th June during the New Plays From Europe Festival in Wiesbaden

plot: What made Norwegian assassin Anders Breivik putting on his police uniform, placing a bomb in Oslo and wreaking a massacre on Utøya island? The answer apparently is easy: Breivik wrote a "Manifest" to explain the necessity of his actions. Based on this disturbing material next to court documents the author Christian Lollike explores the search for Breiviks motives and his right-wing philosophy that is not limited to Norway.

verdict: It doesn´t happen often that 90min of theatre leave me speechless (especially not when it is the last of 11 plays seen in 10 days).
Here the play finished, I had to take a deep breath and go outside for a few minutes on my own to compose myself again before talking to others.
The actor Olaf Højgaard jumps in and out of the character of Anders Breivik. He reads his texts and comments and critizes and ridicules them. He prepares to build a bomb out of fertilizer as Breivik did, starts working out and taking steroids, he slowly turns into him as the performance progresses.
The audience doesn´t know what to feel anymore - is the fiction, is it real? Is he a commentator, is he playing a character? The mix of different texts and Højgaards visual transformation developes a hypnotic pull of horror and fascination. Breivik listened to "Lux Aeterna" by Clint Mansell on his Ipod during the massacre, when this music plays on stage and Breivik/Højgaard points his machine gun into the audience my blood ran cold.
Controversial, multi-layered, disturbing and an outstanding actor - wow.