Shifting Scenes: Performing the Faroe Islands during World War II

This article examines the 1943 play Baaden (The Boat) by Svend Borberg, one of the most controversial, allegedly pro-German, plays performed during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, and the first-ever portrayal of the Faroe Islands on the Danish national stage, The Royal Danish Theatre. While Borberg refuted any political implications in the play, the Faroese location (being under British wartime occupation) clearly involved exactly that. Via an analysis of an extensive, never-before examined range of source materials, we examine how a series of transpositions – in text variations, visual staging and soundscape – were effected in three fundamentally different political contexts: of the aggressor, Germany; of total occupation, Norway; and the grey area of political and cultural collaboration, Denmark. Our analysis reveals highly complex, kaleidoscopic geo-dramaturgical transpositions in text and performance, which complicate the predominant view of Baaden.