Have It Norway

The European Lesson Takes the Ugly American to School.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Aug 27, 2008

For a theater piece about the mysteries of international communication, things looked bad when I started trying to interview the cast and crew of The European Lesson.

Manny Dominguez Jr

Actor Aaron Cromie had pneumonia and couldn't speak. Actor Jeb Kreager was eating dinner at Parc and couldn't speak. Director/choreographer Jo Stromgren was in his native Norway with poor phone reception and zero Internet access and couldn't speak.

This was no way to start discussing Live Arts' first international commission.

At least the man who booked The European Lesson could shed some light. "I wanted an original work from an artist I felt was unique, fresh, super great and would work well with Philadelphia performers," notes Live Arts commissar Nick Stuccio.

Stromgren was perfect. He's made smart, fun, weird work like the sarcastic The Convent (performed at 2006's Live Arts fest) and the tragic-comic The Orchestra in his homeland for the last 14 years. That he's Norwegian was an interesting bonus for Stuccio. "The cultural back-and-forth with Stromgren has been so fun to watch and has loaded the material with cultural stereotypes."

With a chat about those stereotypes as its basis, Stuccio and Stromgren hashed out The European Lesson over dinner of reindeer and whale at the latter's Oslo apartment. Next thing you know, Stromgren's choreographing Philadelphia actors and toying with notions of international, national and personal identity. How do we feel about Europeans? After eight years of rotten U.S. foreign policy, what do they think of us?

"Jo's directing style has been based on physical provocations and character relationships without much emphasis on dialogue," says Philadelphia actor/motion artist Cromie — feeling better, thank you. "The unusual aspect of developing his show is that we're learning the story as we create it — meaning that Jo has a story line and a trajectory he's interested in exploring — but reveals the points as we go."

The show concerns an American anthropologist giving a lecture on Slovak culture; throughout, most of the actors speak only in a faux-Slovak language. Stromgren's clear (to his actors) about the relationships and actions he wants to explore, and relies heavily on their instincts to bring character to those ideas. The humorous horrors of the "ugly American" cliché — his rise and fall — is where Stromgren's Lesson commences.

"I hope people can see that the color of one's passport is not necessarily the main issue," says Stromgren. "If we manage to get our messages across, everybody will identify with at least something in this 'ugly American.' A theater piece without a shred of afterthought is pointless."

Anger and humor are Stromgren's stock-in-trade. Stromgren likes being able to elicit sympathy for bad people. It's an intriguing way to start what he calls "self-scrutiny." But everything he says — about himself, his country, his theater — seems to pick at scabs.

Ask him about his notorious ambivalence toward dance methods, if his uncalculated choreography allows him greater ease and absorption into any given work. He says method itself is ambivalent. "Since each idea has its own path toward a finished result, there's always a need to use a palette of methods. Artists have too much respect for the tools they've learned and perfected. I'm not the kind of artist who makes polished gems."

He'd rather talk about Steven Seagal movies or potato-growing in high altitudes than dance. He mentions potato growing several times.

He's not too keen to discuss Norwegian-ness, either. "I can see people get surprised when someone from a white spot on the map, a heathen whale-eater with a strange language, can join an ultra-American conversation, discussing a certain episode of Leave It to Beaver or something like that," says Stromgren. "When I travel I usually know more about people I meet than what they know about me. The good thing with working in the U.S. then is that I am familiar with the all-American references and able to play along with a local irony."

Locally speaking, Stromgren enjoyed doing The Convent in Philly ("It's a gift to come from a strange and unknown place, simply because it forces the audience to enter the theater without any expectations") and understood why Stuccio and other producers would offer him a choreography gig. He does his "thing" — a thing he believes is unconnected to trend or theater. "Being personal is being original and if someone likes my type of show — then I'm the only one they can call. I have no competitors, so to speak."

For all his piss-taking at Americans throughout The European Lesson, Stromgren found out some things about his own land that were none too pretty. "Being forced to evaluate my own conception of Europe, even as a European myself, has given me an even clearer notion of Europe as a continent in decay," says Stromgren. "It's as if the world is changing and we are not part of it."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

The European Lesson, Aug. 29-Sept. 6, $25, Black Box Theater, 626 N. Fifth St.

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