Review: Troll

Troll is a two-person show created by Marie Kallevik Straume, Anna Marie Simonsen and their director Cecily Nash which focuses on the folkloric figure of the Nordic troll (Straume and Simonsen’s are both from Norway and perform most of the show in Norwegian). Yet for most of the show’s hour it actually feels like we the audience are being trolled in the more contemporary sense. If only the show was intelligent enough to be doing this purposefully or meaningfully.

The show sells itself as one that wants to undo the misrepresentation of trolls. Yet you wouldn’t really get that at all throughout this long hour. There seems to be no skits, no narrative arc or meaningful exploration of this. Threads and jokes are created but never explored: Why are the trolls so into smelling things? Why do they like to drink cola? Worldbuilding and lore also seem to be completely ignored: Why can these trolls not understand English until one random section towards the end of the show? Why do they randomly whip out an iPhone to get an audience member to read a profoundly boring and disclaimer? 

Of course this could be argued as a show of buffoonery and absurdity, tenets of clowning shows like this. Yet there doesn’t seem to be any pay off and the duo’s lack of physical theatre skills doesn’t seem to point to them being some sort of high art clowning duo. At one point they struggle to even get the audience to split into two groups, their hand gestures and stage presence awkward and opaque.

There are glimmers of how the duo are great comic performers. But perhaps you are better off seeing their cabaret show that they have also brought to the Fringe