Brown/Brune
Brown/Brune
As long as the sun is up, Rusty is merely Rusty, but come night he transforms himself into Rusty Brown – a totally fearless super hero. Armed to the hilt with brushes and brown paint he sneaks out of the house. Rusty can hardly be blamed if his alter ego, Brown the superhero, chooses to paint the big bullies’ bikes brown, can he?
He is soon joined by two other superheroes and friends Jack/Black and Lou/Blue.
BROWN is a warm and powerful story, full of creativity and everyday magic. BROWN is a play about friendship, courage and retaliation. It is also a story about the loss of someone dear and just how wrong things can go when your superhero powers run out.
The show won Norway´s most prestigious theatre award THE HEDDA PRIZE 2017 for best performance for children.
Theatre Joker has made a theatre-show about feeling left out and vengeance. This is the story about a little boy who, thanks to a vivid imagination and courage, manages to confront his bullies. Rusty´s retaliation happens at the same time as he experiences the loss and grief over his dear grandfather. It´s almost like Rusty´s imagination helps him work through both his grief and the limitations of reality.
The story about Rusty Brown is a wonderful mixture of realism and adventure, fun and great seriousness, and talks about grief, bullying, friendship, courage and retaliation.
Family-show from age 8.
Performed in English.
Based on an international book-success.
More about Brown
Theatre Joker uses the physical form, band mimé, French for cartoon mime in the show. This has become the company´s signature form. In this show it reflects the unity Rune feels with his friends; a friendship that helps them all in the fight for justice.
Cartoon mime is a physical form where the actors create everything using only their arms, legs, head, heart and voices. The form in it self is poetic, and creates associations and images that are dreamlike in a naïve and refined manner.
Theatre Joker uses especially composed music in the show, by the composers Geirmund Simonsen and Raymond Enoksen. The show is based on a book with the same title (Brune), written by Håkon Øvreås. The book has won several international awards, among them:
Winner of the Nordic Council´s Prize for Children and Young Adults 2014
Winner of the Ministry of Culture's Literature Prize 2013 (Best Children's and Young Adults Book
Winner of the Dutch Zilveren Griffel (Silver Pen) 2015
Selected as Top 10 Teacher's Choice by China Education Newspaper 2015.
This is what Mr Øvreås said about out staging of "Brune":
"I´m the one who should say thank you. I didn´t know what to expect, but still I was surprised by your performance; because it was so good, how you had captured the atmosphere and the characters so brilliantly, and for the creative and cool solutions. But also the strangeness of seeing something I have written come to life.This was a huge thing for me -and inspiring. I am so grateful that you staged "Brune"! It gives me great pleasure to read the great and well deserved reviews you have received."
This is what the jury of THE HEDDA PRIZE said:
The essence of all theatre art is the theatrical transformation where incidents, objects and performers appears in a new and different way, to give life to an alternative reality. Thus theatre is closely related to the child´s imaginative creativity, both as a source of worryless play and as a place to seek refuge when the real world doesn´t appear as it should. This year´s winner underlines and celebrates this kinship in a precise and at the same time playful staging where the actors shine brilliantly as surplus artists of transformation. They effortlessly switch between different roles, and together give a physical language to a series of scenographic elements and props. The language is contemporary and credible in a dramatization based on the prizewinning book “Brune” by Håkon Øvreås, published in 2013.
Quotes from the press:
Teater Joker succeeds in creating contemporary and disturbing theatre for children. Unfortunately it doesn´t often happen that theatres stage performances for children which dares to venture into a different and contemporary stage language. The perspective of performing arts for children needs to be broadened. This is exactly what “Brune” does.
-Ida Lou Larsen, Periskop (09.03.2016)
There is a lot of laughs in ”Brune”, but this is also theatre for children which dares to be serious, and that trusts that the children can do the same. The production understands that children are capable of also grasping what is painful and difficult, and it allows the audience to think. This is a very successful production.
-Lillian Bikset, Dagbladet (03.03.2016)
Credits:
Director, script: Niels Peter Underland
Performers: Rasmus Even Hol Skjegstad/Jens Smith Wergeland, Jon Arne Arnseth, Patrick Børjesson, Gard Pedersen/Haakon Strøm, Kari Ramnefjell/Seda Witt
+ 1 technician
Set- and Costume Designer: Gjermund Andresen
Composers: Geirmund Simonsen og Raymond Enoksen
Dramaturge: Endre Sannes Hadland
Lighting designer : Martin Myrvold
Props : Gøril Rostad
Producer Teater Joker : Kari Ramnefjell
Producer Akershus Teater : Sandra Sandbye
Length: 60 min