Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Do not miss The growth of the soil


This evening I went to see the play THE growth of the soild by Knut Hamsun, directed and acted out by  the norwegian Juni Dahr in a barn on an island outside Oslo.
The growth of the soil is the life story of a man in the wilds, the genesis and gradual development of a homestead, the unit of humanity, in the unfilled, uncleared tracts that still remain in the Norwegian Highlands. It is an epic of earth; the history of a microcosm. Its dominant note is one of patient strength and simplicity; the mainstay of its working is the tacit, stern, yet loving alliance between Nature and the Man who faces her himself, trusting to himself and her for the physical means of life, and the spiritual contentment with life which she must grant if he be worthy. Modern man faces Nature only by proxy, or as proxy, through others or for others, and the intimacy is lost. In the wilds the contact is direct and immediate; it is the foothold upon earth, the touch of the soil itself, that gives strength.
The story is epic in its magnitude, in its calm, steady progress and unhurrying rhythm, in its vast and intimate humanity. And Juni Dahr has created and recreated a nature and situation so abnormal that it is normal, so profound that you end up finding yourself. So wonderful and recognizing that you cannot stop applauding.

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