I've been neglecting to update my blog now for the past year so now I'm going to try to briefly summarize in a few words and pics the whole of last year...


In january I started working for my old college's theater "Á Herranótt". Previously I had directed "The heart of a dog" by Bulgakov (That was back in 2003)


For this years work I decided to do an adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's "Lilliom", also known as "Carousel", that's Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical version. My idea was to blend the two and create new music, with the help of a great group of kids, here is Binni, in the midst of creating the hit song "Í eldinum"

Rehearsals went well and we went for a premiere early in february if I remember correctly...


At about the same time early preparations for the National Theatre's production of "Ivanov" by Chekhov, scheduled for christmass 2007 began with a month long brainstorming session with director Baltasar Kormákur.



The group even went to a proposed location for filming the story, Flatey in Breiðafjord, as the plan was to do a dual production film/theatre based on Chekhov's Ivanov.


Here's the cast, the director, costume designer Helga Stefánsdóttir and set designer Gretar Reynisson.


So we did some character work...



And enjoyed the beautiful scenery, including the craziest northern lights I have ever seen in my life.







Then there was the premiere of "Lilliom", entitled "DJ Lilli", the carousel master was in our version a disillusioned turntable spinner, here we have Lilli (Breki) and Júlía (Telma) in gloriously arty B&W.





A review by a housewife in the west of town. The production homepage. The premiere went great and everyone did a great job, especially my trusted set designer Kristína Berman.

Then it was time to head for London for a run of Peer Gynt at the Barbican theatre, there is a link to a seperate blog I did for the National theatre to the right...


Mostly good reviews, 3-4 stars, although the preconcieved notion of many critics that the play is unplayable because of it's span of time and places became a phrase to often repeated. All in all a great time in London once again at the Barbican.

Most of the time I spent though in this lounge room:

Where I and Baltasar began making plans for the adaptation of Ivanov for the screen before heading up to the Barbican for the evenings performance. Work progressed well, and when we were ready to head home we had a plan for the upcoming work to be done.


When I got back home, Eyja seemed to have decided to set the record for the worlds fastest growing baby...


Two friends came for a visit, Ronnie Nilsson and Bjorn Olsson from "The burnt out punks" to help with a well paying gig I did for a local Bank. We went for a swim in Hveragerði, in crazy weather...


And Ronnie decided that the wanted to do some impromtu photoshots on the way home...

Freezing his ass off for the sake of his art...


Then I went with Baltasar to Hof, his farm at Hofsós, to continue the work on "The Bridegroom", our working title for the screenplay of "Ivanov". This dog, called "Bingo" would wake me up by jumping into my bed in the morgnings...

Usually accompanied by this barbarian, Stormur Baltasarsson.


The work progressed slowly, with a couple of detours and long nights.


But we were well on our way when I left to go to Holland for a run of "Woyzeck" at Het Musikteater in Amsterdam.


And this time Eyja and Esther came along. After a brief stop in Copenhagen with my in-laws we flew to Amsterdam to meet up with Vesturport.






Börkur Jónsson, set designer extraordinaire, was in charge of the direction this time as Gísli Örn was in London producing "Metamorphosis" if I remember correctly.


Amsterdam was great and we even took Eyja to a nightclub...


Where Halli Volvo and Árni Pétur staged a tandem pole dancing contest much to our enjoyment.


Then it was more work at Hof... Eyja and Esther came along for a few days.

And then it was Woyzeck in Salamanca. This time Björn Thors was a stand in for Nilli.


And these guys were there as well... don't ask.


And this guy... he just stood there with this burden in his hands, lifting it above his head and putting it back down... I didn't get it...



And inside the church was a shrivelled hand in a glass box, a gift from Pope Johannes in 1996...


And we had a great time, the attendance could have been better but what do you expect, in the middle of the summer.





Ok. That's part one for now... halfway through. Part two: "White wedding night" and Ivanov, Metamorphosis and more...

Somtime around christmass I went to visit my brother Gunnlaugur in Stockholm to see the premiere of his work "Ossuarium", a ballet he choreographed for the "Kungliga Operaen" (There is link here on the right for some more information and pictures).




My grandmother Herdís was with me and regularly read something to me from the Journal of Icelandic Spiritists, here she is reading an article, if I remember correctly, on the routes to enlightenment in everyday life, which we ofcourse neglect habitualy...


The "Ossuarium" was brilliant, even if I admit to being severly partial... A tender ode to death's mystery, well done indeed brother.

On goes the updating of my backlog of theatre activity. Just before new years eve 2007 Jón Atli's "A 100 year old house" was scheduled to play in Tallin Estonia for the City Theatre Festival.



Actually we played on one of the theatre's exotic venues, a horse-mill built around the year 1200.



Other stages included an openair arena and a deep cellar space, where a wonderful performance of "Don Kikote" took place, courtesy of The Moscow Theatre Academy's stage design department, no less. Physical theatre, shadow puppets and theatre magic combined for a great show seven floors underground.

We had not played together for a couple of months so a good warmup was in order, orchestrated by Harpa Arnardóttir, attired as the blissfully vacant retired rocket scientist who lives on the top floor of the one hundred year old house.


A short Yoga breathing session.


And then it was showtime.




After the show there was a reception and then we had an opportunity to sample the Estonian nightlife.



The morning after I did some sightseeing and visited the church of "St. Olav".


Where they were giving out food for the homeless, this man fell asleep with a piece of bread in his hands.


And then it was time for departure.


The trip home was a slight ordeal for the "Fru Emelia" theatre members travelling with some of our costumes and equipment. The flightcase gave up on us and emergency repairs were in order.


Then our flight got delayed and then rerouted to Helsinki, then Stockholm and Oslo before we could change planes and head for KEF Iceland.


But we managed and were in Reykjavik just in time for the fireworks.

Working on updating the blog to the passing moments here is Vesturport's trip to Norway where R&J was up for a possible last run...


Otto was there to keep up the morale on the last few meters and soon got Darri swinging his boa


Nina Juliet was pregnant then, now not so but mother to Rakel Maria, pictured here with my litle lady Ragnheiður Eyja.


So Ágústa Eva aka European song contest contonder Sylvia Night did Juliet this time around, with plenty of gloss and bravado.


And as Magga was not with us Kristjana did lady Capulet and Benvolio, OJ in hand and all.


And Elli went out on a ledge to make these last performances memorable, with new magic tricks and golf club swinging almost tumbling from the springboard, much to my enjoyment... thank you Elli for all the big laughs.


Elli even sang us some Kareokee on the Stavanger-Bergen train one night, assisted by the Scandinavian top Kareokee DJ Harald who was going to Bergen to DJ the Scandinavian semi-finals of Kareokee singing...


But had his Kareokee-lap top with him. Much to Björn Hlynur's enjoyment.


There was more entertainment to be had on that cold Stavanger-Bergen train as Gísli pulled his best Freddy M. impression.


And a new character I will name Mr.Smallface...


Beutiful Árni was there as well, as should be, singing his swan song as the weed smoking father Laurens.


With his good friend Jesus, who used the opportunity to go shopping in Ikea, of course, where the prices are simply heavenly. This got big laughs, but then again everything Jesus does on stage is funny... Because Jesus is funny. Jesus is coming...act busy.


And Prince Thomas was there with us...


Getting almost too heavy for the wire system, a grown man soon. In five years and 390 performances much has changed... Some of the costumes seem to have shrunk and were quite ill fitting these last few one hundred performances or so...


Bursting at the seams in inapropriate places...


But we delivered, to a full house and a standing Norwegian ovation




Producent extraordinaire Rakel pulled it off one more time




And the Brandy Brothers got some quality time


Before we all headed home.


Coming up next... A 100 year old house in Tallin, Estonia, F.Molnar in Reykjavík, Peer Gynt in London and the Burnt out Punks come for a visit...

Pictures from Vesturports trip to Ludwigshaven Germany with Woyzeck.

Ludwigshaven is a strange place, it is the home of the BASF chemical plant in which some 30.000 people work I was told, it's population is 60% Turkish and 40% German and besides being close to where Buchner, the author of Woyzeck, was born it seems as if our Woyzeck could easily have taken place in this grey industrial sprawl.

Up went the scenery on a state of the art stage, very nicely technically equipped with a revolving stage as well as a stage that could be raised in individual lengthwise segments, almost three meters high and could then be tilted, creating a raked stage or platforms. Very impressive. This was all explained to me in great detail by the stagedirector who mistook me for our set designer Börkur for some reason.

And a pineapple was cut in celebration of our arrival.

The theatre hold around 900 persons and although not sold out we had a great audience. I however managed to be the first of the group to contract a horrible digestive curse that thouroughly ravaged my system inbetween harrowing performances of the play. Injected with a saline solution I scrambled feebly up the ropes and dangled in the cloudswing, probably evoking the image of a sack of potatoes rather than that of a man attempting suicide, or maybe not, a part of me really longed to die...


Finally I remembered a remedy - boil rice and drink the water, so out I went to buy rice and then back to the hotel, into the kitchen there to explain that I want hot water, no not hot tap water, boiled, to boil this rice in, but keep the water, in my state of fatigue this was an ordeal but I managed to pull it off and it worked, thank the gods.

At the same time fellow Vesturport crewmembers were succumbing to the german curse and were kept up all night emptying their innards. The pair above were one of the few who were not affected


But Ludwigshaven had it's bright spots, we found a great thai restaurant, belive it or not, with a kareoke hall, and promptly took it over, Gisli took over the DJ post



Ingvar crooned himself into the heart of our hosts...

And Gayzone reunited for their cover of "Whatever I did, Whatever I said, Whatever".

Although Vikingur was not invited to join in with his former bandmembers for some reason...

The Vesturport choir, Fuckport, sang a more formal and non a-tonal tune at our farewell gala, inducing animated conversations with the Ludvigshavians on the topics of elfs, glaciers, geysirs, northern lights and the sagas.

So all is well that ends well

And kudos to Unnur Ösp who did a fantastic job in jumping in for Nina, who was then pregnant and is now a mother to a little girl, managing to pull Maria off with frantic grace and tremendous sex appeal...

Then it was goodbye to Ludwigshaven and BASF and off to Norway for five shows of R&J, maybe the last ones, making for a grand total of roughly 390 shows in five years.

The miracle has happened. On october the 23rd I became a father and Esther became a mother.

When in Oslo me and Lolla - Ólafía Hrönn, did some drawings of the Peer Gynt troupe, Here are the drawings, only Edda Arnljóts is missing, don't know why...


Björn Hlynur by Lolla

Darri by Óli

Darri by Lolla

Ingvar by Lolla

Gunna Gísla by Lolla

Björn Hlynur by Óli

Óli by Lolla

Lolla by Lolla

Óli by Óli

This weblog is long, long overdue but now I've finally got around to do it so here goes. Vesturport's summer tour started with Woyzeck in London for a second run at the Barbican from the 4th through the 15th of July, every show sold out and critics choice in Time Out, again.


First stop was the Agra Sweet and Spicy on Brick lane, the place looks like old "Mulakaffi" in Reykjavík, a shabby eatery, but they make the strongest Vindaloo this side of Sri Lanka, try it for a life changing culinary experience...

Ofcourse the fussball weltmeisterschaft was still going strong and we saw the infamous Zidane incident at the Ibis hotelbar on Commercial street, home away from home in London.


Speaking of hotels and homes, I present: A short guide to living in hotels part one, unpacking:

a) The stuff

b) The room

a) goes into b) in this proposed way and order: 1) First off, up goes the lap, and itunes is opened, moodmusic is essential when unpacking, I personally prefer and recomend something ordered, to better aid the ordering of things, classical music preferably, Bach for example.

You can see that I use a europe to uk thing for the powerplug, you can get by without one - just poke something plastic in the extra socket hole and then in goes the european two peg plug... I don't know why they have to have to have 3 plugs, probably just to be different, you know, drive on the wrong side kind of a thing, but still I don't take any chances with my laptop and use the transforming thing

2) Then clothes are hung, do not leave them in bag, you take twice as long to find things and when you do find them they are crumpled.

3) Bag for dirty laundry goes into a convinient place, I bring my own but a plastic one will do, the bag you take to the drycleaners somewhere near the hotel - the hotels charge you ridiculous amounts for their dry cleaning services.

Shoes lined up so as to not be in your way when not needed

4) Two bathroom kits, one for taking to the theatre and training and one for the hotel

5) Get extra towels, 6) Pyjamas go on bed, certainly optional but I sleep in pyjamas with an open window and the ac off after seeing the inside of an airvent once, you would not believe the shit that collects in there.

7) Work and reading material lined up... yes there are some really interesting articles in that magazine :-) And there yo have it, a basic setup, A place for everything and everything in it's place, said the father of Einar Áskell and then put the icecream in the closet and his underpants into the freezer.

London is always great, I like the city, generally everyone is polite and makes an effort to get along with everyone else, which I consider essential to metropolis existance.

And then there is such diversity, I can sit on the tube endlessly and wonder at the varying sizesm, shapes and models of the human animal


...And the brutality of our lives...

And then there is just all the strangeness...

The Woyzeck Drum Major choir, Fuckport, was there as well, including Halli Volvo

And Vikingur put on his best jacket and smile, a free man in London Town

The shows went well, despite Nilli the flying tutu swan unexpectedly having to return to Iceland and Gísli taking over his part, but before Nilli went home he challenged Ingvar to an elevator lobby karate contest for the title of Ibis hotel champion.

Nilli lost.

But there is no denying that weariness had set in by the last performances





And it was sweet to play the final performance and then head off to spain for a short summer vacation in Barcelona



And at the dolce spa in Sitges



From Spain it was back to London for a brief stop and from London to Copenhagen where Brim was going to be playing at the Nordic dramatists awards, but somehow plans got botched and the awards lost some funding so Brim did not play, met Signa Sorensen who won a special appreciation award for her work in theatre/performance.

And then off to poland for a few performances of R&J in the german/polish city of Gdansk



The last time we play two performances of R&J in the same day... we are getting too old and fat



And in Polland we got our new flightcases - which I painted our logo's on after the last performance



With good help from prince Tomas

Meanwhile Borkur was working on a new sculpture - the chandelier ship

And once again the scenery went up... and down

On the way home I sat next to this guy... it wasn't as hot as it looks like

Then it was time for brushing up on Peer Gynt before taking him to the Ibsen festival in Oslo





Ibsen seems to have been made into some sort of mickey mouse icon in Norway - there is such an industry based on him - here we have the psychadelic Ibsen bus...

The response to the show was beyond our expectations - great reviews and attendance, in short, a fine tour...

On the way back from Norway I stopped in Stockholm to visit my brother Gulli who is a ballet dancer at the Opera.

And saw him dance at the amazing slotsteatern near the palace of the king - a former king had it built as his personal theatre, it has been preserved in it's original state and is simply amazing to visit.