Babette's feast

Karen Blixen’s story of human tolerance comes to life in Church of Our Lady

Hordaland Theatre perform at Olav’s Festival. Babette's feast til Olavsfest.

Karen Blixen’s short story is renowned as a narrative about human tolerance. This sensuous story tells of a magnanimous love for life and fellow human beings, and it places our view of what it means to be an outsider under the microscope.

Ragnhild Gudbrandsen has translated and dramatized the text and has the only role in this intense monologue performance. Stig Amdam is director while Nils Økland has composed the music, which is based on Norwegian and French psalms.

The plot 
Martine and Philippa, the minister’s daughters, are pillars of the puritanical congregation in Berlevåg. But the congregation has lost much of its former authority and is marked by old age and deep-rooted conflicts. A French woman, Babette, flees the dreadful acts of war in Paris in 1871 and is given employment by the sisters for whom she works as a faithful servant for fourteen years. Then she wins in a big lottery and invites the whole congregation in Berlevåg to a magnificent French feast which exceeds the wildest imagination and which unleashes both suppressed feelings, old conflicts and intense zest for life.

To cherish one another and to share one’s good fortune with others, is Babette’s philosophy of life in a nutshell.

DAG OG TID: «Fine theatre monologue. Evocative performance of an always pertinent classic»..

Norsk Shakespearetidskrift: «Babette’s Feast resonates like a beautiful psalm. …Gudbrandsen performs with measured impersonation, body language, song and voice, and separates the various characters on the basis of her acting ability.»

Ticket price: 275,- incl. fee
Numbered seating
Place for wheelchair and seat for accompanying person sold by telephone: 815 33 133
Doors open at approx. 18.30
No age limit