Click the button to buy a signed and numbered record with the music from Good Morning, Faggi in Icelandic.
All proceeds go to Samtökin ‘78 - the National Queer Association of Iceland.
Perplex Theatre Company is an ensemble of queer theatre artists and thinkers founded in 2016 in Reykjavík.
We are a chosen family production company for artistic work we deem worthy of our talent and time. We move together and create work informed by our hopeful belief that theatre can change the world.
Our Icelandic title is Stertabenda which describes poetically what happens when horses stick together and get their tails entangled.
Good Morning, Faggi
An autobiographical one-man musical and a political cabaret.
“Funny, shocking, entertaining, poignant, beautiful and sincere”
“A powerful and remarkable show… Bjarni is purely magnificent”
“with great pleasure I encourage all theatre and musical lovers to go see this show”
“No other theatre show has affected me as deeply”
“Utterly hilarious! Axel Ingi’s songwriting is exquisite”
“Triumphant intimate documentary theatre that stays with the audience long after the performance”
“Bjarni deserves praise”
A gay man in his prime in queer paradise Iceland suffers a sudden nervous breakdown. Through inspecting diaries from his past and letters between him and his mother, he tries to understand what happened. Good Morning, Faggi (GMF) is a humorous and vulnerable journey through shame, fragmented memory and the desire to fully belong.
The piece addresses internalized, subtle and systematic oppression and violence against queer people. It tells the true story of a white, abled, cis-gendered gay man who wanted to create a flamboyant cabaret show with his friends but ended up falling apart during the creative process. GMF tells the tale of its own creation and is based completely on the performer’s autobiographical accounts of life through his diaries, letters and memories.
It is personal and it is political. It is an act of remembering and contextualizing memory. It is vulnerable and raw yet completely controlled, scripted and choreographed for specific results. It is story telling; it is a monomythical moment; a testimony of a multi-faceted marginalized yet privileged voice; it is non-linear and structured fragmentally like memories and trauma and our being in the world as people. While the focus of the show hones in on the collective experience of the lgbtq+ community, it is about what it means to be human.
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GMF is co-written and workshopped by three best friends through writing labs, readings and co-thinking with communites of queer people in Iceland since 2017.
The show premiered at the National theatre of Iceland on August 13th 2021, during Reykjavík Pride. Performances are still ongoing at the original venue, for tickets click here.
Since the premiere, Perplex Theatre Company has received numerous grants from various institutions to tour the show Iceland in association with The Icelandic National Theatre. The show has already been performed for almost every 14-19 year old in Iceland through the public school system. All in all the show has been performed 120 times for more than 16.000 people in Iceland.
The piece has sparked vital in-depth and difficult conversations about human rights of queer people in Iceland and the creators are frequently asked on TV, radio and newspaper interviews to discuss queer matters in depth. The show has joined divided generations in empathy and recognition. Like that, GMF is an emblem and an ode to what we want theatre to do.
We want to bring this specified story of a gay man in Iceland to other parts of the world, in hope of dire identification of queer people and contextualisation that might spark crucial conversation in the lives of audiences everywhere.
The original cast recording GDF
- in Icelandic -
(English recording coming soon)
Awards
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Nominations
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Recognition of company / artists
2022: Official funding of touring for youth audiences in Iceland by Prime minister’s Office, Ministry of Social affairs and Labour market and Ministry of Internal Affairs.
2022: Song from Good Morning, Faggi selected as official song for Reykjavík Pride 2022.
2022: Axel Ingi Árnason nominated for Music of the year for Good Morning, Faggi - Gríman, Icelandic Theatre Awards.
2022: Bjarni Snæbjörnsson nominated for Singer of the year for Good Morning, Faggi - Gríman, Icelandic Theatre Awards.
2021: Good Morning, faggi awarded among 5 best performances of the year - Morgunblaðið, theatre critics.
2018: Stertabenda awarded among 5 best performances of the year - Morgunblaðið, theatre critics.
2017: Gréta Kristín Ómarsdóttir nominated for DV Culture awards in Iceland for staging of Stertabenda by Marius Von Mayenburg (Perplexed).
2017 Gréta Kristín Ómarsdóttir nominated as director of the year for Stertabenda by Marius Von Mayenburg (Perplexed) - Gríman, Icelandic Theatre Awards.
The Perplex Team
Our core team is director, writer and producer Gréta Kristín Ómarsdóttir; activist and dramaturg Hjalti Vigfússon; actor and writer Bjarni Snæbjörnsson; composer and musician Axel Ingi Árnason and dancer, choreographer Cameron Corbett.
Gréta Kristín Ómarsdóttir
Director / Writer
Gréta (she/they) is an Icelandic theatre director, dramaturg and queer & feminist theory lecturer at Iceland University of the Arts. She studied Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Iceland and graduated as a theatre and performance maker from Iceland University of the Arts in 2016. Since then she has directed around 12 professional productions in all major theatres of Iceland as well as in independent groups, mainly Perplex where she was founding member in 2016.
Since 2019 Gréta has also worked as a tenured dramaturg and advisor for artistic committees at The National Theatre of Iceland (NTI) and since 2020 she’s been the Artistic Director of two stages NTI, Kjallarinn and Loftið, both spaces that focus and program marginalised forms, stories and artists.
Currently Gréta is completing her MA in directing at Helsinki University of the Arts, where she is researching ways to shift hegemonic structures of theatre institutions, value oriented directing and leadership and queer methods and aesthetics.
Bjarni Snæbjörnsson
Actor / Writer
Bjarni (he/him) is an Icelandic actor, performer and drama teacher. He graduated with a BFA degree in acting from Iceland University of the Arts in 2007. Since then he has gained great stage experience doing classical dramas, comedies, musicals, avant-garde performances and entertainment as well as TV shows, commercials and films.
He has performed with all the major theatres in Iceland: The Reykjavík City Theatre, Akureyri Theatre Company and The Icelandic National Theatre while also being active in independent theatre groups. Bjarni is a founding member of Improv Iceland from the company’s debut in 2014 and has performed countless comedy improv shows in Iceland and abroad. He is also a founding member of Perplex Theatre Company.
Bjarni is a trained singer and performs on a regular basis at various private and public events. He has, for example, performed with North Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
Bjarni has a BA in English from the University of Iceland, MA in Arts Education.
website: www.bjarnisnae.com // Click here for IMDB profile
Axel Ingi Árnason
Composer / Songwriter
Axel Ingi (he/him) is an Icelandic composer. He studied musical composition at the Iceland University of the Arts, earning his masters degree in 2020. He has specialized in music for theatre and film where he extensively studied the history and tradition of musical theatre.
He has composed music for productions in the National Theatre of Iceland and the Reykjavik City Theatre and has also worked with many independent theatre productions. Along with his compositional work he is also a choir conductor, orchestrator and piano accompanist.
In 2017 Axel was nominated for best original score at the Maverick Movie Awards for his music in the feature film Restraint, directed by Adam Cushman. In 2022 he received a nomination for a Gríma, the Icelandic Performing Arts Awards, for his music in the musical Góðan daginn faggi.
Axel has a masters degree in cultural management from Bifrost university and is currently finishing an MA in creative writing at the University of Iceland.
Cameron Corbett
Dancer / Choreographer
Cameron Corbett (he/him), born in Portland Oregon, began performing professionally at age 8 in 1981 specializing in artistic, classical, commercial and theater dance. He attended the well known Jefferson High School of the Performing Arts and University of North Carolina School of the Arts on full merit scholarship after receiving a national award from the prestigious Arts Recognition and Talent Search.
He was a dancer in Tanz Forum Köln in Germany and quickly rose to the highest rank. While in Köln, he choreographed a music video for Guildo Horn und die Orthopädischen Strümpfe, a solo nominated for the Köln Tanz Preiz, a solo for Museum fur Angewandte Kunst and he appeared in an episode of TV's Derrick.
In 1997 he moved to Iceland to join The Iceland Dance Company as a dancer and choreographer. Since then he has choreographed numerous dance pieces in Iceland for different companies. He has also choreographed for the National Theater of Iceland, Reykjavik City Theater, music videos, live numbers for television, and many independent theater productions in Iceland.
Hjalti Vigfússon
Dramaturg / Activist
Hjalti Vigfússon (he/they) is an Icelandic theatre producer, dramaturg and activist. He graduated as a theatre and performance maker from Iceland University of the Arts in 2021.
Hjalti organized the The Reykjavik Slutwalk from 2013-2018 which evolved into the biggest protest march in Iceland and brought meaningful legal and social reform. He was also editor-in chief of the art book I AM A SLUT which explored themes of surviving sexual violence and challenging sexist social norms. Hjalti has also organized LGBTQ+ protest assemblies and worked as a political consultant and assistant.
Hjalti has been involved in numerous theatre projects, most notably Good Morning, Faggi and the Icelandic/Polish production Tu jest za drogo which premiered in Reykjavík City Theatre in 2022.
Hjalti is currently the General Manager of the theatre group Improv Iceland which has shows in the National Theatre of Iceland every week and a lecturer in feminist and queer theory at the Iceland University of the Arts.
Past Perplex Productions
From Perplexed (2017) by Marius Von Mayenburg
From Insomnia (2018) by Amelie Olesen
We would love to hear from you! Email us or write in the form.
perplex.theatre.company@gmail.com