Crazy nurses hits the New York stage

From the 9th to 12th March our 2005 success production The Hospital will get its revival, and it happens at Abrons Arts Center in New York City! The original cast of nurses are back, “[…] as stupid and clumsy as ever. And charming and good”, Jo Strømgren himself says.

The Hospital is physical theatre at its very best: daring, dark, unpredictable and charged with compressed intensity. The skill and courage of the performers is breathtaking. (The Guardian, UK)

Jo Strømgren Kompani finally returns to New York, this time with our internationally acclaimed production of The Hospital. Characterized by the Company’s darkly humorous mix of dance and theater, The Hospital is set in a remote, empty hospital where three nurses try to endure the lack of patients by injuring then treating each other, performing their duties on themselves as an alternative to the real thing. Not a healthy activity, but it passes the time. A military chopper is constantly passing overhead, revealing a far simpler explanation for their problems.

The Hospital premiered in 2005 in Riga, Latvia and has toured to 22 countries including a month-long run at the Sydney Opera House. It was selected as “The Sexiest Show of the Year” at the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2006. The performances at Abrons Arts Center feature the production’s original, all female cast: Guri Glans, Gunhild Aubert Opdal and Ingri Enger Damon.

As with previous productions, Strømgren aims to explore dance theater forms with actors not trained in dance. The Hospital also continues Strømgren’s exploration of nonsensical language, by having the performers speak in an invented alias of Icelandic, a language that resembles the ancient mother tongue of all Scandinavians. About the use of nonsensical language, Jo Strømgren says:

It was meant as a one-time experiment many years ago. But I realized audiences world wide really appreciated it. There was no confusion, as if viewers were satisfied with making their own stories and interpretations instead. It’s the old “a picture says more than a thousand word” working on our behalf I think. And furthermore, you don’t get very far from your local or national sphere with real language. Most citizens in the world just speak their own language anyway. With nonsensical language there are no borders and this has been mindblowing to me. Suddenly we can tour with theatre to all corners of the world. And the audience are always on the same level.

The Hospital will, in addition to the performances in New York, have a one week run at The Norwegian Opera House in Oslo in the beginning of April.

When the three actresses are asked what the audience will be thinking about when going home from a performance of The Hospital, they reply:

“Our sexy underwear? Where those real pills? Where did all that blood come from? Lets go to Iceland!”