PARADISE IN VIEW – an Elling Monologue

Adapted for stage by Christine Bette Bopp, Helmut Zhuber & Stephanie Kuntz

It is a dense and successful dramatisation of Ingvar Ambjørnsen’s first novel in the Elling-trilogy. His entire life, Elling, an anxious man in his 40s, has lived alone with his mother in a flat in a concrete block somewhere in Oslo. His mother dies and he has the flat all to himself. In an attempt to control the chaotic life after his mother’s death, he shuts himself in, in a room with a chair, a table and a telescope; he watches his neighbours, follows their lives and puts himself in their situation – identifying himself with them. Ambjørnsen’s story about the withdrawn Elling is a thought provoking tale, full of tragic-comic episodes, humour, endless desolation and bitter satire. The 200 page novel has been condensed to a spell-binding monologue lasting about 90 minutes.