Produktionsanalys av: Backa Teaters uppsättning av: UTOPIA 2012. När var du i paradiset senast?

Abstract

This essay analyzes the production process in connection with the original play Utopia 2012, which premiered at Backa Theatre, Gothenburg, Sweden on 27 October 2012. The aim of the essay is to seek a deeper understanding of this particular production process. No universal process plan was employed when creating Utopia 2012. Therefore, taking into account artistic, technical and administrative aspects of the work, a chronological process map has also been constructed in connection with this essay, in order to clarify each step of the theatrical working process. The theoretical approach is hermeneutic, and the material is based on interviews with key individuals with different professions and functions within the working process in order to gain multifaceted perspectives and results. The interviews took place at Backa Theatre with the exception of those held by telephone with the project’s two producers, both of whom by that time no longer worked at Backa Theatre. The findings of the essay mostly indicate that, with the significant exception of director Mattias Andersson’s artistic vision, no fixed process map nor explicitly articulated common goals were employed in this particular theatre production. And although documentary theatre work is currently something of an artistic hallmark for Mattias Andersson, the documentary aspects used in the making of Utopia 2012 have been particularly extensive and distinctive. The chronological process map shows that the production process began in spring 2011 and was fully ended two years later, in May 2013.