"The Restless"

A contemporary rewriting of Ludvig Holberg's 300-year-old comedy The Restless (Den stundesløse) about the busy businessman Vielgeschrey for Nationaltheatret in Oslo, Norway.

In Enter Ghost's new dramatization, Vielgeschrey is so hung up on stocks, investments, and personal training that he loses grip on reality. When his daughter Leonora wants to marry a poet, Arthur, he tries to ignore it. Meanwhile, Arthur dresses up to pitch his art as business ideas to earn his father-in-law's approval. However, art is a hard sell, at least until Arthur invents a time machine that will take its user into the present.

Inspired by the literary scholar Anna Kornbluh's Immediacy: Or, the Logic of Too Late Capitalism (Verso Books, 2024), Enter Ghost's rewriting of The Restless is a ruthless critique of the obsession of presence in our historical present. The intrigue of Holberg's original is reimagined as a characterization of the narcissism and vanity of our time.

The Restless is Christian Lollike's third adaptation of a Holberg comedy, and Enter Ghost's second after the award-winning Jeppe på bjerget.

Find tickets for the show at Nationaltheatret's website.