Ethan Bjelland translates and reproduces a play written by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

On Friday, Nov. 11 at 8:00 p.m., Senior Theatre Honors Major Ethan Bjelland will debut his senior honors project Five Times God. Preparation on Bjellands’ project began last March when he conceived the idea and has been working hard ever since.

Five Times God is a play originally written by Swedish playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri, contemporary author famous for his controversial literary works. Bjelland, who obtained permission to reproduce the play from Khemiri, translated and is reproducing the play for an American audience.

Throughout the original rendition of the play, Khemiri raises the question, “What does it mean to be Swedish?” Bjelland’s work involved adapting the play to an American audience.

“One of the challenges of my project was taking someone’s words and giving them meaning in another culture and making it accessible for an American audience,” Bjelland said.

“Even though the play is based on the Swedish question, the troubles and tribulations the characters go through make it easy for anyone to relate,” Professor Henry MacCarthy, Bjelland’s advisor for his theatre major said.

Translated, cast and directed by Bjelland, Five Times God follows a rehearsal of a play at a suburban Stockholm school. Each of the five characters, who, except for the teacher, are Swedes with non-Swedish backgrounds and had experienced ethnic discrimination and alternate taking on the role of director. Each character writes the script for another character, in effect revealing their fictions and “becoming God.”

“The play has a very urban contemporary feel and is very relevant in today’s society. It touches issues that some may find quite troubling and asks you to rethink where you stand on these issues,” MacCarthy said.

“This play dips in and out of reality while playing with a lot of language and other issues. It portrays struggles to find identities. Khemiri was not an ‘ethno-Swede’ so he faced a lot of the issues presented in the play,” Bjelland said.

“His characters are very ‘real’ and expressive. Their humanity is rich and they are interchangeably vulgar and sensitive. The play shows a ‘real’ world filled with power struggles of different sorts, a world that begs for more solidarity and love. And yet, the play is also very humorous,” Bjelland’s advisor for his Scandinavian studies major Professor Helena Karlsson said.

As a Scandinavian studies and theater double major, Five Times God is a culmination of two of Bjelland’s passions.

“I found it really fun to bring together my two majors into something so artistic and personal. I absolutely loved the challenge of Khemiri’s script and the depth he puts into his language. Using his script for my project seems to comment on my own ability to take someone’s words, translate them and give them meaning. There was a lot of adaptation involved,” Bjelland said.

Bjelland began translating the script last May and produced about 13 drafts over the course of the summer until he was satisfied with his work. Working independently with advice and suggestions from Karlsson, Ethan produced his final draft of the script toward the end of the summer.

“I literally worked all summer on this. I would do a draft and not like it, so then I would start over. I did that again and again until the script settled into what it is now. Some things I had to change to adapt to the American audience. The play took on various forms throughout the summer,” Bjelland said.

“I think Ethan did an excellent job with the translation. He found very appropriate expressions in English for the Swedish slang Khemiri uses. He successfully translated and adapted the language to an American audience,” Karlsson said.

Audition and casting for the play occurred early this semester.

“I was very fortunate to have so many people audition. It is extremely interesting to see how well the actors I am working with now fit their roles. When they go ‘off-character,’ you can still see glimmers of the role they play. They just clicked,” he said.

Junior Philosophy Major Tim McComas-Bussa, who will play the role of the ‘traditional’ white Swedish teacher Rolfe, is also excited about how well cast members adapted to their roles.

“Rolfe really is just an annoying terrible person. I definitely see a lot of the negative parts about myself in him. Getting to see the younger members of the cast develop and to interact with them has been tremendously enjoyable,” McComas-Bussa said.

“Working with Ethan has been incredible. Because he translated the play himself he has this incredible understanding. He has literally lived and breathed this project for much of the past year. His passion really shows in what he is doing,” McComas-Bussa said.

The play will be performed on Nov. 11 and 12 at 8:00 p.m. and on Nov. 13 at 2:00 p.m. in the Black Box in the Schaefer Fine Arts building.

“There will not be a tremendous amount of seating, but because of that the show will be super up-close and intimate. The Black Box is a really interesting space to work with. The actors will almost be right in the faces of the audience making for a great experience,” McComas-Bussa said.

As of last Tuesday, all performances were sold out. If additional shows are added, posters will be put up advertising the new dates and times.