Abstract
This essay explains the modernist montage rhetoric of Nordahl Grieg’s 1935 drama Vår ære og vår makt in the context of the playwright’s interest in Soviet theater and his Communist sympathies. After considering the historical background for the play’s depiction of war profiteers in Bergen, Norway, during the First World War, the article analyzes Grieg’s use of a montage rhetoric consisting of grotesque juxtapositions and abrupt scenic shifts. Attention is also given to the play’s use of incongruous musical styles and its revolutionary political message. In the second part, the article discusses Grieg’s writings on Soviet theater from the mid-1930s. Grieg embraced innovative aspects of Soviet theater at a time when the greatest period of experimentation in post-revolutionary theater was already ending, and Socialist Realism was being imposed. The article briefly discusses Grieg’s controversial pro-Stalinist, anti-fascist position, before concluding that Vår ære og vår makt represents an important instance of Norwegian appropriation of international modernist and avant-garde theater.
Highlights
The dramatist, poet, and novelist Nordahl Grieg was in many ways the most internationally oriented Norwegian writer of the first half of the twentieth century
While in the Soviet Union in 1933–1934, Grieg responded with enthusiasm to new theatrical styles and techniques that he would later utilize in Vår ære og vår makt
There is a historical irony, I suggest, in Grieg’s embrace of avant-garde Soviet theater, in that it took place at a time when Stalinist repression and censorship was increasing, Socialist Realism was already being imposed as an official style, and the groundbreaking period of experimentation was coming to an end
Summary
The dramatist, poet, and novelist Nordahl Grieg was in many ways the most internationally oriented Norwegian writer of the first half of the twentieth century. While in the Soviet Union in 1933–1934, Grieg responded with enthusiasm to new theatrical styles and techniques that he would later utilize in Vår ære og vår makt (first published in 1935, translated to English as “Our Power and Our Glory”). With this drama, Grieg brought avant-garde and modernist impulses to Norway in one of the decade’s most significant and controversial theatrical events. By using a montage technique characterized by grotesquely contrasting juxtapositions, Grieg emphasizes inequalities and conflicts between the different the social groups depicted in the play, the ship-owners and the sailors of Bergen. There is a historical irony, I suggest, in Grieg’s embrace of avant-garde Soviet theater, in that it took place at a time when Stalinist repression and censorship was increasing, Socialist Realism was already being imposed as an official style, and the groundbreaking period of experimentation was coming to an end
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