The Play

Jon Fosse The Nobel Prize

Original title: Skodespelet
Publisher: Samlaget, 2025
Genre: Play
Pages: 123 pages

An older couple arrives at a pier with suitcases in hand. They are heading out on a boat trip they’ve been looking forward to, but the pier is strangely small, there are very few people around – and why doesn’t the boat ever come? A young couple is also waiting there. A troupe of actors shows up. They want to perform a play for the waiting passengers and get both women involved in the performance. A drama of jealousy unfolds there on the pier. Life and art become entangled. What is theatre? What is reality? Who has written the roles we play here on earth? And where is the boat really taking us?

The play will have its world premiere during the Fosse Festival at Det Norske Teatret in September 2025.

Jon Fosse

Photo: Agnete Brun

Nobel Prize-winner Jon Fosse (b. 1959), is widely considered one of the most important writers of our time. For almost forty years, he has written novels, plays, poems, stories, essays, and children’s books. His award-winning work has been translated into more than fifty languages and his plays have been staged over a thousand times all over the world.

Jon Fosse grew up in Strandebarm, a small village in the western part of Norway, he now lives in the Grotten, an honorary residence in Oslo, as well as in Hainburg, Austria, and Frekhaug, Norway.

Fosse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023 and has received numerous prizes, both in Norway and internationally through the years.