Review: Egenmäktigt förfarande

With a quick joke, the production exposes both the self-deception of blind love and boundless narcissism.

When two of the most debated novel characters of recent years – Ester Nilsson and Hugo Rask – are brought to life on the stage of Lilla Teatern, they are not given a chance to fool anyone other than themselves. With a quick joke, the production exposes both the self-deception of blind love and boundless narcissism.

I assume that most people have at least heard of the original, Lena Andersson’s novel Egenmäktigt menetlus from 2013.

When the novel was published, it not only received an enthusiastic reception and this year’s August Prize for Fiction for its sharp depiction of the defeat of reason when passion strikes.

Quite quickly, it was also incorporated into the lively debate about the man of culture after the literary critic Åsa Beckman appointed Hugo Rask as a prototype for the phenomenon.

And when the novel is now staged in different stage versions, it naturally also takes place with that debate in the mental baggage.

The main character, Ester Nilsson, is a sharp and analytical essayist and poet, always prepared to critically examine both her own arguments and those of others. But when she meets the acclaimed artist Hugo Rask, reason goes out and love goes in.

Suddenly, Esther’s rationality is transformed into a tool in the service of self-deception. Hugo’s platitudes appear as hidden profundities and his fuzzy signals as half-stifled promises.

In the gap between illusion and reality

At Lilla Teatern, the self-deception of the two main characters is painted with the bushy brush of comedy.

In Ann-Luise Bertell’s brisk direction, the caricatured exaggerated emotions and sham manoeuvres reveal the enormous gap between illusion and reality.

Linda Zilliacus plays a wonderfully nerdy Ester who self-consciously and obsessively dismisses all the warnings of the choir of friends. We see how passion blazes in her heart with the same glow as the blush on her cheeks.

With the stubbornness of a fool, she transforms black into white, or rather pink and red, in her attempts to interpret Hugo’s ambivalent attitude.

Because Hugo likes to have a lot of cookies on the plate. A no, like a yes, is too definitive an answer.

Johan Fagerudd makes his Hugo with the same commentary approach as Linda Zilliacus in her portrayal of Ester.

Fagerudd’s Hugo is a comically self-absorbed man. As an audience, we never see him through the eyes of the infatuated Ester.

On this point, the stage version is more unambiguous than the novel. The echo of the culture man debate can be sensed immediately when Rask enters the scene.

But if we were given a little more time to look at him at the seams, we might also discover something that we recognize far more than we are prepared to admit.

Hugo Rask’s narcissism is nourished by a backing court, it is in his interest to stay on good terms with everyone. But at the same time, his pronounced fear of conflict is not something that only so-called cultural men have a monopoly on.

And that aspect is part of a reasoning that I would have liked to see a little more of in Lillan’s production.

The Friendship Choir sets the tone

Karin Parrot-Jonzon’s dramatization is in itself very smooth and one of the most ingenious solutions is that she has transformed the novel’s choir of friends into the engine of the entire stage version.

The choir of friends is reduced to two actors, but it is a duo with many functions.

The two friends are not only Ester’s sounding board and representatives of the sanity she herself has lost. They also share a commentary narrative role and in this production often steal the entire show with their alert remarks.

So it is also the choir of friends who decide where the turning points are and who insist on a quick replay every time something truly blatant takes place there in Ester and Hugo’s saucey relationship turns.

In Lilla Teatern’s production, Anja Bargum and Emilia Nyman act as these two masters of ceremonies who, in flight, also deliver a series of quick portraits of passing secondary characters.

The quick portraits are often uncontrollably satirical, and when Ann-Luise Bertell’s energetic direction also lets Ester’s uncontrollable emotions run amok, it often feels like we were watching a cartoon.

The mental stream of bang, boom and tjuckle is almost audible.

And of course it’s delicious. But to some extent also a witty farce at the expense of philosophical questions.

The joke in the dramatization inexorably overrides some of the nuances in Lena Andersson’s careful depiction of a skewed relationship.

Of course, we laugh at Ester’s collapse of reason when blind infatuation strikes, but at the same time, the character can always count on the audience’s sympathy and compassion.

Hugo, on the other hand, is encouraged to laugh quite harshly all the way. He is so easy to dismiss, a hoax that the sober eye reveals immediately.

But at the same time, it is a simplification that allows the spectators to sit a little too safely in the rows of seats. Regardless of gender and status.

The incorruptible Esther

Ester Nilsson is not only a defenseless victim of the blinding power of love. She is also a woman with the right challenging principles.

In an era that has transformed undemanding sex into a popular sport, Lena Andersson introduces a figure who would never devote herself to something so hedonistic and reckless. No, Ester Nilsson prefers to “unite in the flesh” and those who have done so have, according to her, also entered into a covenant with both obligations and rights.

Sure. But hand on heart – how many of us are prepared to really wholeheartedly subscribe to that opinion?

And how many are prepared to start a new relationship at all without first checking where the emergency exits are?

I am not claiming that Ester Nilsson is wrong. But I argue that her incorruptible stance would provoke and chase most of us away if we were confronted with it in our own lives.

But of course, Ester would only dismiss this point of view as useless in its lack of documented universality.

And there in the safe theatre auditorium, we don’t even have to deal with the issue.