Show Business in Oslo

In Oslo the director of the National Theater beamed on the actors he had called together. "We're about to present nothing less," he announced, "than the world premiere of Per Reidarson's The Last Cry, which will mark a new era in Norwegian drama. ..."

The actors did not beam back. In glacial silence they heard their quisling director talk up a quisling dramatist. Then they left the theater to set in motion a little drama of their own.

Next morning not one of them showed up. The director, in a fury, sent Gestapo agents out to corral them, bellowed when they were brought in: "You may as well know immediately that the penalty for refusing to act is imprisonment or death."

Rehearsals went on for weeks under the eye of the Gestapo. In October pro-Nazi dignitaries attended the dress rehearsal. The cast performed brilliantly. Leading Man Joern Ording delivered his key speech to wild applause: "Democracy has brought us to destruction."

The play ended and the actors left the theater. Half an hour later the stage was in flames. The scenery was ruined. The premiere was postponed. The cast was arrested. Later all except Ording were released, and rehearsals resumed with Lars Nordrum in Ording's part. Two days before the new premiere, Nordrum vanished.

The premiere was postponed again. Ording was brought from prison to the Chief of Police, ordered back into the show in curt quislingo: "Don't try any tricks this time or it will cost you your life. . . . The show will open Dec. 16."

A host of dignitaries, a greater host of firemen and police, turned up for the new dress rehearsal. On one side of the curtain was a tense cast, on the other a tense audience. Suddenly the director flung out on the stage, spluttered that there would be no performance. Ording had had the last laugh on The Last Cry--he too had disappeared. He and his wife trudged through knee-deep snow for three hours with a howling six-week-old baby, reached Sweden and safety.

A few days later, with the entire cast under heavy guard, the play finally opened, closed after Christmas, may or may not reopen.

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