As much as I’d like to resist the pun, That Theatre Company’s Marathon is a play that’ll run and run.
A tragicomedy in one act, the audience follows Edoardo Erba’s characters Mark and Steve as they train for the New York Marathon and begins to understand their perspective on life as the play explores memory, family, pain, love and the nature of men.
The two actors are some of the fastest-rising names in Danish theatre: Benjamin Stender is already a Reumert award winner and Rasmus Mortensen played Hamlet on tour with the British Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Cast and crew describe rehearsals as a “joy” and enriching their portrayal of “crude, stupid and obsessive” men chasing success and each other despite running being “painful, time-consuming and ultimately pointless”.
Director Ian Burns promises the audience will be “engrossed in the twists and turns of the language” and the constant running, which Mortensen finds liberating in allowing characters to “just be”.
Burns’ experiences as a cross-country runner certainly help convey rivalry – how much ‘a serious runner hates the sight of the neck in front of them, and how your closest friend is your pace-setter’.
Playing for a month in Krudttønden, this play promises to be extraordinary: on its Scandinavian premiere, we wish these courageous runners the best.
Break a leg!
