My Deer Hunter
FOUR VETERANS STRUGGLE TO RETURN TO LIFE
Winner of the Reumert Award 2021: Performance of the Year
Four war veterans are fighting their personal battles, trying to find a way back into the world. It’s a battle in which they confront their PTSD, their shame and their lack of confidence in the most extreme and exposed way.
Guided by the film classic Deer Hunter, fix+foxy invites four war veterans, who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and The Balkans, on the stage. In an attempt to recreate the lives they lived before everything fell apart. The four veterans go back in time and revisit the traumatising moments that changed their life forever.
My Deer Hunter is produced in collaboration with Betty Nansen Teatret and is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation for Performing Arts, Augustinus Foundation, Knud Højgaards Foundation, Konsul George Jorck og Hustru Emma Jorcks Foundation, Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Foundation and Kirkens Korshær Genbrug & Logistikcenter.
The show was first performed 31 October – 5 December 2020 at Betty Nansen Teatret (Siloen), Copenhagen
Previous tours
08 – 12 September 2021: Teater V, Valby, Denmark
17 September 2021: Teater Nordkraft, Aalborg, Denmark
12 – 13 Oktober 2021: Teater Katapult, Århus, Denmark
21 – 23 Oktober 2021: Teater Momentum, Odense, Denmark
Reviews
“My Deer Hunter is a compassionate masterpiece!”
Den 4. Væg
★★★★★
“Tue Biering’s My Deer Hunter is sublime civic theatre.”
Jyllands-Posten
★★★★★
“My Deer Hunter is not victimisation or smothering sentimentality, but perhaps the most unpretentious, dignified and important theatre this year.”
Kristeligt Dagblad
”I’m convinced that these 4 performers take part in making us, the audience, understand more about the price of war.”
Information
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
”That these 4 performers in fellowship have found the strength to tell theses stories, is just as life-assuring as it is for us to become a part of them.”
Politiken
★★★★★★
”No one will leave the theatre without being heavily affected.”
POV International
★★★★★★
”Fix&Foxy reinvents docu-drama in this existentially touching, completely relevant and aesthetically well-performed story, where four people invite us to join them in the black abyss.”
Iscene
★★★★★★
“My Deer Hunter is an awfully rough and socio-realistic docu-drama.”
Ungt Teaterblod
★★★★★★
“Fix & Foxys socio-realistic My Deer Hunter is excellent, foreseeing and aware of it’s responsibility.”
Sceneblog
Cast Jonas Hjorth Andersen, Nicolai Stokholm Sondrup-Otsen, Palle Würtz og Sara la Cour
Director and Scriptwriter Tue Biering
Set Designer Ida Grarup
Light and Videodesigner Andreas Buhl
Sound Designer Daniel Fogh
Music Arranger Louise Alenius
Dramaturge Tanja Diers
Caster and Cast Consultant Sascha Kempinski
Stage Manager, rehearsals Alice Sjurkalina
Stage Manager, performance run Anna-Sophia Noerbel
Props Coordinator Josefine Else Larsen
Costume Designer Camilla Lind
Carpenter Rasmus Nordal
Carpenter Magnus Poulsen
Press Officer Rosa Dehn Callesen
Poster Photographer Catrine Zorn
Press Photographer and video Søren Meisner
Sound concept Asger Kudahl and Daniel Fogh
Light Technician Malte Hauge
Producer Karoline Holm Michelsen
Communications officer Camilla van Norde
International Producer Annette Max Hansen
Project Officer Christine Walther Sørensen
Director’s Assistant Kasper Bisgaard Laursen
Set Designer’s Assistant Emma Grarup
Backstage
MY DEER HUNTER was one of the shows affected by the corona pandemic. We had to delay, stop and postpone the process several times. But in the end, the show was finally done and presented at Betty Nansens stage, Edison.
On the stage four ex-veterans were present. Jonas, Nicolai, Palle and (Sara) La Cour.
A rehearsal period with four people suffering from PTSP, demanded some other, and different resources than an ordinary rehearsal period with four actors normally would.
Fix&Foxy often works with people that aren’t actors, but who represent themselves. Amongst others in AGAINST ALL ODDS, PRETTY WOMAN A/S, WE THE 1%, and FRIENDS – THE ONE WITH THE ASYLUM SEEKERS. In every process we take into account what the performers need, and in MY DEER HUNTER this was the need for a psychologist present in the rehearsal room.
Here you can listen to an interview with one of the four performers, Jonas Hjort, which was presented by Den 4. Væg. (In Danish)
When awarding Fix&Foxy with the award for ‘Show of the year’ at the Reumert Awards in 2019, the jury said:
”Trauma’s emerge like snipers in the field-kitchen built on stage, where these four PTSD-struck war veterans move around. In their frayed nerve-system the sound of plates breaking feels like granades exploding. The smell of burnt meat and the suicidal looks of these veterans pull reality on stage, so we can meet the living dead. Grim and unsettling theatre.”
One of the persons that got affected by the performance, was film director Jonas Poher Rasmussen. Here you can listen to him talk to Tue Biering, in DR’s podcast ‘Affected by art” (Ramt af kunst) (In Danish)
Pictures 1 – 5:
Pictures of the rehearsal period, both in Betty Nansens rehearsal room and at Edison
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Picture 6 – 7:
Parts of the prep- and cleanup-lists for the show
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Picture 7 – 9:
Receiving the Reumurt Award 2021 for ‘Show of the year’
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Picture 10:
Behind the photoshoot for the poster
My Deer Hunter on stage talk from fix+foxy on Vimeo.