And here’s the translation (I’m ignoring the fact that there are two interviewers, sorry about that…)
Interviewer: That was Toto, Hold the Line. You, Tarjei Sandvik Moe, you said that that was your favourite Toto song.
Tarjei: I hold that one over Africa, really.
T: That’s a bombshell, there will be hate and I will have to pull out of the public eye after this interview, but I think Hold the Line is cooler than Africa.
I: It’s great. Tarjei Sandvik Moe, welcome to “Reiseradion”. Many recognise you as Isak from Skam, but now you’re launching a new performance at Oslo Nye, but it isn’t inside the theatre hall, it’s a walking theatre.
I: What is a walking theatre.
T: Walking theatre was maybe originally like you being guided around a city by different people in person, but we have made an audio guided walking theatre that only takes place in your ear, so you buy an audio file, start playing it outside Oslo Nye Teater, and then that… that audio guides you around the city at the same time as you get literature, culture and different texts depending on where you are in the city. Historical things too.
I: So it’s like a radio play in your ear.
T: It’s a radio play in your ear, but at the same time you have the physical presence of the city of Oslo - the city of Oslo is the setting and us actors are in your ear.
I: It must be brilliant if you’re a tourist.
T: Yeah. Yeah, I think so, absolutely. And a lot of people are perhaps in Norway, or in Oslo this year instead of going abroad, even if you can travel a little now, I heard, but… so we wanted to make an offer for all of those who are in Oslo to maybe save money, so that’s a hundred bucks and you get a seventy minute theatre experience that you at the same time get to walk three kilometres for, so…I think that’s pretty cool…
I: Good exercise for the public health too. Should we listen to what it sounds like?
Now take left into Teatergate. Teatergate? Teatergate?? Why is such an untheatrical street called Teatergate is maybe what you think now.
The feet are in a conversation with our eyes. Ears. Nose. Arms. Upper body. And feelings. A conversation that often happens faster than the head is capable to follow.The feet take us further, we feel the ground. What hits beneath the soles.
T: This was an excerpt from Erling Kagge’s book “Att gå” [to walk]. That’s a man who’s been to the North Pole, the South Pole, so… he’s walked a bit, and he’s written a book about that, “Att gå”, and we’ve used a lot of excerpts from his book in the parts where you walk from place to place, so… it is a performance that’s also about walking in itself and what kind of role it has for the brain and body. “While we wait, we’ll walk” is the title of the performance, and we thought that during the wait that this Corona time has been, it’s nice to experience the city anew and look around you a bit, like, what is this city really?
I: What other works are in it?
T: We also use, for example, excerpts from Knut Hamsun’s “Sult” [Hunger]. When you’re at Sankt Olavs Plass you can look up at Sankt Olavs Plass 2 where the scene between the main character and Ylajali takes place and then you get this scene acted out as a radio play while you actually look up at the flat where it took place.
I: I have to ask, as we sit here and we’ve listened to a clip from “Att gå”, you got the experience to listen to yourself, how do you feel about that?
T: To listen to it? It’s always strange to hear your own voice, you have to recognise that, but I think it’s a very nice text so I’m happy with that.
I: But you, who is used to be on a stage or act in tv-series or movies, how was it to do this which is audio theatre?
T: It is something completely different to be in a studio and only perform through your voice, you probably recognise that too, that… that it is only the voice, that’s the only thing there is. I have done very little dubbing, never read an audiobook or anything like that, so it is like to squeeze all your acting into your voice. You notice that using your body can still work, though. You get some kind of energy from your body into your voice that you can use and I think it’s so exciting both finding out that you can compress the actors into their voices but also where you don’t use your voice, like dancing for example, or like a silent theatre thing, I think it’s always nice that you get better acquainted with yourself as an actor by compressing it down to single pieces of it. You break it into “I can’t dance here, I can only talk”.
T: Very bare. And I’m not always that pleased with my own voice either, so you just have to endure it in a way.
I: You have the voice you have.
T: That’s… a well known expression.
I: And I think it works very well. Tarjei, you’re staying here for a while longer, we’re just taking a trip to Eva Weel Skram and “Berre la meg vær”
I: What a gift to have Eva Weel Skram and “Berre la meg vær” here in Reiseradion. You liked it, Tarjei?
T: Wow, what a voice. What a lovely voice.
I: You, Tarjei, are only twenty one but employed by a theatre already, how is it to be the youngest of the pack?
T: I love the feeling of being the youngest. To just be able to lean on the others, and learn, and suck in stories from norwegian theatre history and everything. For example, for this performance have I worked a lot with Kari-Ann Grønsund
I: She’s the one from Lillys butikk! Children’s television.
T: Precisely. And she’s in her sixties while I’m twenty one, but we’ve become such good friends, I’ve got a close connection with her and she has these stories from Oslo from the sixties and seventies that she also use in the performance, old preposterous tales, which I love.
I: Can you teach her anything? About tik tok…?
T: All the technology we’ve used for this performance, just to get the audio files to play, I had to help Kari-Ann every time we had to play the audio files, so that’s…
I: That’s where you’re useful.
T: That’s where I’m useful.
I: But, Tarjei, I was thinking, are you prepared for the time when you aren’t the youngest anymore?
T: Yeah. But I experienced a bit of it when I was in a play called Til Ungdommen this spring, and there were… I am born -99, but there were people born -02, even.
T: A young man by the name of Jon Ranes who was born in 2002, who also was the composer for the play, and it was a bit like “Now I’m almost the oldest”. And it was really strange.
I: Did they come to you for advice?
T: May… maybe a bit? But I don’t have any advice, me?
I: You don’t have any advice?
T: No, very few. And it’s a bit like, people need to find their way themselves, there are many roads to Rome.
I: That’s wise… And about theatre education and things, what’s your take on that?
T: I’ll be honest, I don’t apply for theatre education right now. I have this assignment with Oslo Nye Teater and I feel that I learn incredibly much by working with theatre professionally and from my colleagues. And then there’s also the point of “Fuck, I make money” so like you get the double feeling of getting your life education and still gets to work, and I like working and acting so much so it’s become that I consider this the School of Life, but who knows, maybe I’ll suddenly get it into my head to get an education.
I: You’ve avoided student loans, that’s a good thing.
T: I did. I’m very privileged and very lucky, that I am.
I: And you’re about to start a big project this fall that I feel is completely different from the things you’ve done before. You’ll hold a seventy minute long monologue from a stage.
I: Why did you say yes to that?
T: Because I am employed by Oslo Nye Teater and they put me in different performances, small roles, big roles, and I have to say yes. That’s what you do as an employee, right? You do what you’re asked? [this sounds so much harsher when you don’t hear the way he says it btw - there might be some truth to it, but he is also over exaggerating the delivery for shits and giggles]
I: But what play is this, then? Or what monologue?
T: It’s a monologue called 20 November, that also premieres 20 November - there I got that said in two different ways - and it’s based on the diaries and internet activity by a school shooter in Germany in 2006. Um, he was the only one who died in the incident, but he has left behind a lot of texts that the swedish playwright Lars Norén has turned into a monologue, so I have to stand there and be this Sebastian Bosse, who wake up on the 20th of November and explains to the audience why he’s off to the school he attended to shoot people.
I: How do you prepare for something like that?
T: Lately I’ve been reading up on school shooters in general, and I’m really fascinated by this… maybe mostly boys, but people who are left outside the system and develop such a strong hate towards society that they commit severe acts of violence, which also happens in Norway, so… it’s just to, like dive deep into it and try to understand, even if it’s hard to understand, but… They are people.
I: And a bit lighter at the end, Tarjei, summer vacation, will you be getting that this year?
T: Yes. Yeah. I’m acting a bit in a short film during the weekends, but otherwise I’m fishing along Akerselva, I read books, I’ve been out on Hardangervidda, I’m enjoying the Oslo life, yeah.
I: Is there any fish to be had in Akerselva?
T: I’ve got a trout there, but now… I’ve got a trout there but now they’ve opened up for salmon fishing there, which is somewhere below Kunsthøgskolen, I think, and I’ve only fished there once - didn’t catch anything, me and my dad. But it was nice anyway. But… but…now I’m definitely pursuing salmon fishing in Akerselva - urban salmon fishing, isn’t that amazing?
I: You’ll have to stand there with waders and a caffe latte.
T: There are… people don’t understand that it’s me, I see that… there are many people who walk along Akerselva and I try to greet them and nod and… they don’t make the connection that it’s Tarjei who’s fishing. So they just give me strange looks.
I: Oh yeah because this is something new you’ve started, or?
T: No, I’ve always fished, but I’ve just been… a closeted fisher, people just haven’t realised in a way, so they don’t connect me to fishing, they don’t connect my theatre identity with also being a fisher, but… I fish.
I: So, now that we’re going to send you on your way, there’s only one thing I have to say, and that is: Tight lines.
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