Terminus

What has happened? How did the weary Lola end up in a comfortable hotel bed? Is she wasted – again – or is she dead and has gone to heaven?  

After all, she was sick – as were all her friends on the street. A pandemic had broken out among the city’s homeless and people feared them even more than before. 

But the wounds are now healed, the sheets are clean and the wine is cold. Lola finds herself in a Superior Comfort Room at Hotel Terminus – with her own social media account called Lovely Lola.   

A playful parody of our times 

Like a modern-day Jeppe (from the playwright Holberg), Lola is bamboozled into a drama in which she plays the leading role. The hotel staff play jokes on her and pus-filled sores become a distant memory when Lola stumbles across luxury and popularity.   

Outside room 314, the voices of demonstrators, commentators and politicians can be heard. Inside, Lola cries out a familiar tale, depressed over having been abandoned, not being heard or seen or helped when she needed it most.   

What kind of responsibility do we have to each other – and what does that entail nowadays? What exactly does it mean to be sick – or healthy? What is real and what is staged? These are the questions asked by Terminus, but without providing any clear answers.   

Brainchild of sensational Norwegian artists 

This completely new opera is the brainchild of Therese Birkelund Ulvo, one of the country’s leading young Norwegian composers. The librettist is Marit Eikemo, best known for her articulate, socially critical and entertaining writing in such novels as Team Tuva and the essay collection Samtidsruinar. 

The director is Maren E. Bjørseth, who is behind such works as the Lehman Trilogy and Romeo and Juliet at the Norwegian Theatre, A Christmas Fairytale at the National Theatre and Anna Karenina at the Oslo Nye Teater.