'I hope that the debates the performances stimulate will change something' : interview with Danish playwright Christian Lollike

Abstract

Christian Lollike (b. 1973) studied philosophy and literature at the University of Roskilde. Between 1998 and 2001, he also studied stage writing at the Danish School of Art at the Aarhus Theatre. He writes radio plays, screenplays and drama, which he also stages himself. His work also includes sculpture, concert, ballet, opera, and action art. In 2005–2011, he worked at the Aarhus Theatre as a regular author and director. Today he is the artistic director at Copenhagen’s Sort/Hvid Theater (formerly Café Teatret), which focuses on performative art. Lollike received several awards. He won 2013 Playwright Award for his plays Shaft (Skakten), Cake Factory (Kagefabrikken) and for the dramatization of the manifesto of the Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik, Manifest 2083. His staging of Danish classic Erasmus Montanus in the Aarhus Teater in 2017 resulted in three Reumert Awards. In his plays, Lollike deals with the political and moral problems of contemporary Western world. His texts are often provocative and controversial, revealing the dark sides of modern society. They address many diverse issues such as prostitution, media and advertising, church, euthanasia, immigration and terrorism, and environmental crisis. Several of Lollike’s plays were translated and staged in the Czech Republic. The play The Ordinary Life (Det normale liv), directed by Josef Kačmarčík, was staged by the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava in 2017. This interview is one of the outputs of the course in Contemporary Scandinavian Drama held at the Department of Theatre Studies during the spring term 2020. After reading a selected play by Christian Lollike, students were asked to think of some questions for the playwright. Some questions were then sent to Christian Lollike, who kindly answered them via e-mail during June 2020.