Sixty Years of Odin Teatret

Perhaps you’ve already visited the exhibition currently on view at La Virreina Centre de la Imatge dedicated to Odin Teatret, the Nordic theatre company founded in the 1960s by playwright and director Eugenio Barba. You’ll hear more about it during a special session at the Centre de les Arts Lliures of the Joan Brossa Foundation, featuring a film by Claudio Coloberti, a live demonstration, and a conversation between Barba and actress Julia Varley. The event takes place on Saturday, September 13.

This proposal is part of a larger project curated by theatre director and playwright Roger Bernat, involving La Virreina Centre de la Imatge (host of the exhibition Autopenetració) and the Grec Festival of Barcelona, which presented performative and oral exhibitions such as Autòpsia i Autoritat by Roger Bernat, Søren Evinson, and dramaturg Roberto Fratini, also at the Joan Brossa Foundation.

Everything revolves around a Nordic company… founded by an Italian. Born in 1936, Eugenio Barba emigrated to Norway in 1954, working as a welder and sailor before studying directing in Poland. He later returned to Oslo, where in 1964 he created Odin Teatret, later moved to Denmark. Barba also founded the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA), devoted to studying the principles of acting techniques. He became one of the leading figures of the so-called “Third Theatre,” born in the peripheries of major European and Latin American cities during the 1970s.

At the Joan Brossa Foundation, Odin Teatret: 60 Years of Theatre features a 35-minute film by Claudio Coloberti, made in collaboration with Barba and Varley in 2019: A Character Who Cannot Die. It introduces audiences to Mr. Peanut, a giant skeleton-headed figure originally created as a satire of then U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who went on to become an icon of the company.

Next, Julia Varley, one of Odin Teatret’s leading actresses and a strong feminist voice within the group, will give a demonstration titled The Flying Carpet. For Varley, words themselves are magical elements capable of lifting us into flight. She will revisit with the audience some of the texts that have made her soar throughout her career with Odin Teatret.

Finally, after seeing her work, you’ll hear Varley in conversation with Eugenio Barba himself. A major figure of 20th-century theatre and one of the actresses with whom he has most closely collaborated, they will discuss inner truth, introspection, and physical and vocal training—the cornerstones of acting since Stanislavski.

Don’t miss this essential encounter for theatre lovers: Odin Teatret: 60 Years of Theatre. Before attending, check the websites of the Joan Brossa Foundation or La Virreina Centre de la Imatge for full details.