Dagens Nyheter 190303
By: MAINA ARVAS
(…) Lars Rudolfsson sets up his own “Hugh and Nancy’s many worlds” at Elverket in Stockholm (…) The asset is Helen Sjöholm and Vanna Rosenberg in the double role.
Musical
“Hugh and Nancy’s many worlds”
Author: Lars Rudolfsson, freely following a book by Peter Byrne
Director: Lars Rudolfsson
Music: Mats Gustafsson, Per-Åke Holmlander
Scene designer: John Engberg.
Costume: Kersti Vitali Rudolfsson
Light design: Linus Fellbom
Mask / wig: Eva Maria Holm, Mimmi Lindell
On stage: Inga-Lill Andersson, Svante Billinger / Ruben Granditsky, Emma Broomé, Peter Engman, Johan Holmberg, Magnus Roosmann, Vanna Rosenberg, Jennie Silfverhjelm, Helen Sjöholm, Pierre Wilkner
Musicians: Susanna Risberg, Niklas Barnö, Edvin Nahlin
Stage: Elverket, Dramaten, Stockholm
Playtime: 2 hours and 55 minutes
The idea of a parallel reality is a fun and often rewarding narrative within popular culture in particular. In an alternative universe or an extra dimension there is a completely different act to oppose the first-present – contrasting, surprising, escapist, frightening or perhaps comforting and liberating.
The latter is the case in Lars Rudolfsson’s newly written “Hugh and Nancy’s many worlds”, premiered in his own direction at Elverket. Nancy simply needs comfort. On one level, this is a story of an American 1960s housewife who, in order to survive in existence as married to a boundless man in a boundless time, must have a copy of herself to share afflictions with, and get support. There we have the work’s moral pathos, with feminist signs. (…)
But we start with quantum mechanics. Hugh in the play is based on the reality of Hugh Everett III (1930–1982), the physicist who proposed the multi-world interpretation. It states that every conceivable result of a measurement of a quantum mechanical system becomes reality and creates a new universe (- and here I am not ashamed to have scolded the explanation of the digging science journalist Peter Byrne, it´s his book “The many worlds of Hugh Everett III: multiple universes, mutual assured destruction, and the meltdown of a nuclear family” from 2010 which Rudolfsson has based the script on.
Everett’s interpretation didn´t materialize (until later years), instead he worked as a defense constructor and consultant in the military and died in a heart attack caused by smoking, alcoholism, obesity and possibly bitterness. The couple’s daughter committed suicide and the son became a rock musician. Many worlds to tell about in one single dysfunctional nuclear family… and Rudolfsson also wants to depict a piece of American history with refitment, nuclear weapons, a new, free (or sometimes cynical) view of sexuality with swing culture and open relationships, a time of modernity and at the same time problematic outdated gender roles, and so on.
(…) The characters stand up and sit down, and talk and talk, in a strange static and stiff contrast to John Engberg’s moving scenography – an at once self-evident and advanced turning solution for a brown-orange multi-world villa – adorned by Kersti Vitali Rudolfsson’s equally time-inspired costume. One of the driving forces is also the music by Mats Gustafsson and Per-Åke Holmlander: free, challenging, melodic and performed live.
However, the big asset is the meeting between the two strong universes that are made up of Helen Sjöholm and Vanna Rosenberg in the double role as Nancy. It sparkles about both acting and singing. Another small world on her own is Emma Broomé, the daughter Liz, who carries some scenes almost alone with Janis Joplin energy and pain.
(The entire review is not reproduced for copyright reasons)