Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.10.2017, Qupperneq 20

20 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 19 — 2017
gin? So I am trying to extract a multi-
faceted version of events, a panopticon
of what led to the economic crash."
The importance
of chaos
"I thrive on chaos,” Þorleifur says. “I
won't go and create deliberate chaos. I
just don't mind it. I don't mind uncer-
tainty. In fact, I want it. I want to ex-
plore possibilities. I think that answer-
ing a question too early is more deadly
than just not answering it. An open
question will keep the drive alive so you
create a need to generate answers."
Þorleifur acknowledges that there
is always going to be a different inter-
pretation of events leading to the crash
depending on who you talk to. "No
matter who you asked in this country
about what started the crash you would
get a different answer every time,” he
admits. “It would depend on how in-
terested they are, which political af-
filiations they have. There are multiple
truths going on. I could just as well ask
where Brexit began or where Trump
began. It depends how deep you want
to dig. You could say it started with the
privatisation of the banks in 2003; or
you could say it started in 1991, when
the fishing quota system was marke-
tised. So I thought the most honest
place to start was just not knowing
where to start."
Indeed, even the conclusions of the
SIC report have been controversial,
across the political spectrum. Conser-
vatives and progressives alike have had
reservations with the findings, and for
Þorleifur it was paramount to make
sure these different interpretations
had a home in the play.
"I create an interpretation, and I try
to give as much artistic leeway to the
actors as possible, and we pretty much
throw everything in there,” he says.
“And the recipient of the interpreta-
tion is also an interpretation in itself,
because you're talking about things
that people know. There won't be a sin-
gle person in the audience who doesn’t
have strong opinions on every single
scene and every single character who's
going to appear on stage."
Þorleifur believes that there is a so-
cial need for this kind of open-ended
examination, not least because of so-
cial media. The echo chambers we cre-
ate on Facebook and Twitter have led to
a muddying of the waters, whereby, ac-
cording to Þorleifur, “we increasingly
cannot differentiate between having
our opinions and having an informed
debate. So our opinions have become
our informed debate, which means if
somebody disagrees with you, it's per-
sonal."
Little fish, big pond
Post-modernist notions of the flex-
ibility of the truth aside, there surely
are contributing factors to the finan-
cial crash, and Þorleifur believes a lot
of them are culturally specific to Ice-
land. "You'd have to explore a couple
avenues,” Þorleifur postulates. “One
would be that you'd have to acknowl-
edge the size of this country. We have
always been a young and tiny nation.
Before World War II, this was prob-
ably the worst place in Europe to live.
Now, going from the poorest country
in Europe to one of its richest in a very
short period of time (if Iceland were
a person, you might phrase it 'getting
that rich that fast') detaches you from
yourself. In nation years, we're like
teenagers at best. Also, it's more fun to
make it to the World Cup than to make
it to the Small League Of Nations Cup.
It's more fun to be one of the big boys
than to be the best of the small boys.
What the business tycoons did is they
gave us that feeling that we're playing
in the big leagues. We shouldn't under-
estimate that effect. And then, with
an increasing sense of financial well-
being, what is going to happen is you
enhance this detachment from your
basic values. You're going to disregard
a lot of the warning signals that might
present themselves."
So our financiers, with cheerlead-
ing from our elected officials, ended
up contributing to our downfall. Did
the protests then, in large part, stem
from our anger at these powerful men
for ruining our international image as
a big-time player? "Of course,” Þorlei-
fur says. “And there's a lot of parallels
to alcoholism. There is a tendency to
repress your inferiority complex with
megalomania. And I very often have
the feeling that that's how Iceland is.
Then again, you can also say, 'Is it bet-
ter to resign ourselves to being small?'
There's a fine line there."
It’s exactly this fine line, this delicate
balance, that Þorleifur sought to main-
tain in the writing of this play, because
he acknowledges that even collective
responsibility runs along a spectrum.
“I of course acknowledge that peo-
ple will always be able to say that they
weren't involved,” he says. “But I think
economically speaking, and on the
grander psyche scale of the nation, you
will have to agree with the assump-
tion that, as a nation, we partook in
the economic boom. So in the play, we
have people refer to their own stories,
and open up to the possibility of moral
impurity. It gives us the possibility of
criticising others better, to start by
saying, 'Hey, I've also made mistakes.'
It sets a different tone. It allows you to
take a deeper look at the reality behind
this. It's a narrow path to walk."
Visually striking
When it comes to the play itself, one of
the first things that grabs the viewer
is the set. The walls are a stark chalk
white, and the stage is covered with
hundreds of identical white plastic
chairs, bringing to mind Eugene Io-
nesco’s ‘The Chairs,’ another play about
great expectations that led to oblivion.
“The chairs originally started as
an idea of having an AA meeting for
people who can't control their financ-
es,” Þorleifur says, laughing. “At some
point we thought we should invite all
the audience to the stage, and that's
where the idea was born to order 500
chairs. Then that idea kind of dissipat-
ed, and I realised I had to fill the stage
with chairs. There are so few actors
that it creates this incredible loneli-
ness in the room. I want us to have this
moment of reflection before we set off
the fireworks.”
The characters the actors play will
be very familiar to Icelandic audiences;
they’re our financiers and politicians,
some of them disgraced now, others
still going strong. In what is no doubt
going to be one of the most memora-
ble moments of the play, conservative
historian Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissu-
rarson drives a hearse onto the stage.
Standing on top of it is legendary Ice-
landic politician (and current Morgun-
blaðið editor) Davíð Oddsson. Once
they reach centre stage, Hannes acts
like a fawning toady to his hero Davíð,
holding his microphone stand for him
and defending his honour. This inter-
pretation is not very far from the truth.
“We live in a complex world,” Þorlei-
fur says. “People like Hannes and Davíð
reject this and say, ‘No it's not complex.
It's relatively simple. We have a system,
and it works.’ History is also viewed as
very simple: Davíð Oddsson saved Ice-
land. If you read Hannes Hólmsteinn's
articles on Davíð Oddsson in Morgun-
blaðið, replace every instance of ‘Davíð’
with ‘Kim Jong-un’ and you probably
wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
Know your enemy
In fairness, it must be mentioned that
in 2007 Þorleifur did work closely with
the Independence Party. He describes
that experience as personally very en-
riching.
“I was brought in by the Secretary
General of the party, who was a very
close friend of mine,” Þorleifur ex-
plains. “I know he felt they needed a
voice from the outside. They needed
somebody who could look at things
from another perspective. I've never
thought of politics in terms of parties.
I think of politics in terms of necessity
and policy, but in a broader sense. I can
see times when raising taxes is a good
idea, and I can see times and contexts
when lowering taxes is a good idea. I
hope I never find myself so squarely on
one side of a debate that I wouldn't be
willing to take a second look. Although
I mean, there are some red lines I have.”
He now describes the Independence
Party as one that “secretly condones
racism and seems to be stuck in the
past,” but doesn’t regret working with
them.
“At the time, I felt like I could be of
more use trying to pull the Indepen-
dence Party into a direction of libertar-
ianism,” he says. “To make a long story
short, I don't have a political alliance
to any one party, but I enjoy the politi-
cal landscape immensely. It helped me
immensely. I was working with a lot of
people that I fundamentally disagreed
with but I liked on a personal level. It's
so easy to sit on the outside and judge
people. It was a profound experience to
work with people that I fundamentally
disagreed with.”
Embracing
uncertainty
Þorleifur realises that his take on Davið
and Hannes may end up upsetting half
the audience. However, his hope is that
“I won't go and
create deliberate
chaos. I just don't
mind it. I don't
mind uncertainty.
In fact, I want it.”
Elections 2017
Þorleifur Örn Arnarson talks to his co-author, Mikael Torfason.