"Vi skal vitne nå." Krigsforbrytere og norske myndigheter på teaterets anklagebenk

Abstract

In this chapter I present theatre-specific perspectives on the perpetrator as aesthetic figure through a close reading of the performance Ødeland (Pálsson 2021, Hålogaland Teater) that deals with the forced evacuation and burning of Finnmark and Nord-Troms in 1944–1945, and the shortcomings of the process of bringing the perpetrators to justice after the war, both in the Nuremberg military trials and in Norway. I argue that the performance enables a processual view on the collective commission of mass violence (cf. Üngör & Anderson 2019) and engages in an activist memory position on behalf of the north–Norwegian civilian population. I show how the historical events are aesthetically actualized on stage to intervene in an injustice that – in the performance’s perspective – still pertains today. In the first part of the analysis, I show how the actors’ performative embodiment, the collective co-presence in the theatre space and the geographical situatedness contribute to the production of meaning and audience engagement. The complex dramaturgy and collective performative enunciation construction are analyzed on the performance’s micro-level. On this basis, I show in the second part of the chapter how the performance systematically takes the audience through the different levels and phases of the collective perpetration process, from the top-level architects, via the mid-level organizers, to the bottom-level of physical execution and the consequences for the civilian population. A crucial aesthetic aspect is how the audience’s imagination is worked on. Finally, I contextualize my reading in a Norwegian memory culture context where north-Norwegian memory activism has lately been criticized.