Event info

WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE, THE KING OR THE FOOL?

It’s a tricky thing to have power over other people. That is why all kings need someone to stand beside their thrones to ridicule them. Someone must make a laughing stock of the king’s reign and remind him that he is after all an imperfect human like the rest of us. This is the role of the court jester. And the fool is allowed to say just about anything in the presence of the king - as long as it’s funny.

In The Fool we introduce court jesters from all times and continents and investigate the relationship between fool and authority. Are the worst tyrants those who cannot take a joke? Is there literally nothing off limits to the fool? Can the fool affect the course of history and are the fool and the king perhaps the same character after all?

Karl Ágúst Úlfsson has worn many different hats in Icelandic cultural life, one of them being the hat of the fool in the court of those who run our society. In this play he puts this and that into a fresh and surprising context, making good use of his 40 years experience as a social commentator, writer and theatre artist.

WRITTEN BY Karl Ágúst Úlfsson
DIRECTED BY Ágústa Skúladóttir
MUSIC BY Eyvindur Karlsson
SET AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY Guðrún Öyahals
LIGHTING BY Ólafur Ágúst Stefánsson
PERFORMED BY Karl Ágúst Úlfsson and Eyvindur Karlsson