The Mute

The audience success and Hedda Award winner The Mute is coming to Grieghallen with Janove Ottesen, Christian Eriksen and the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. "Impressive, original and touching", the Stavanger Aftenblad reviewer wrote after its premiere in Stavanger. "Great originality and well performed", the Hedda Award jury thought and named The Mute performance of the year.

The Mute is a love story between a woman and a man told in the form of recollections by the two who have now become old. Small excerpts from a life lived together show longings, memories, vulnerability, infatuation and hope. The story is told via the tools of a silent film, with wordless acting, tailor-made music, refined scenography, characteristic costumes and rehearsed body language.

'Without the precision of the words, the audience is invited to add more to it themselves and to dream away, into the situation, into the music and into the imagination, says screenwriter and actor Christian Eriksen.

Telling an entire story without words places high demands on the other forms of expression, being body language, scenography, and not least the music.

'All the emotions of life can be expressed through music. It has been my mantra throughout the process, says composer Janove Ottesen.

The Mute is his very first large symphonic work, a magnificent journey in picturesque sound expression, with Janove's signature intact. The listener is drawn from Morricone-like themes via burlesque funfair music to dark and dramatic pieces.

Photo: Arne Bru Haug

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