Theater director Rickard Günther has died

There are roughly two types of theater directors – some who put their foreheads in deep creases and others who think with their whole body. Rickard Günther was a master of the latter kind. One always left his performances with the feeling of having been exposed to something. Verging on physical, as if all live theater was about taking risks.

Already in the early productions at Teater Galeasen, which Rickard Günther co-founded in 1983, it is clear with all the desirable clarity that he does not intend to follow the broad path in Swedish theatre. Zero psychological realism or brothel comedies. When, as a 25-year-old, he chooses to play the Marxist Brecht, it becomes the youth work "Baal", a furious play that allows him to put his motto in the work: "I prefer to be awake in hell rather than sleeping in paradise".

Even those who missed Rickard Günther's early career as a "street acrobat" could soon discover how these circus arts left their deep and equally bold traces in his directing art. The demands he placed on his actors were both strict and loving. In a DN interview, he talks about creating theater with "despair" and "vitality". Many people started here, both actors and directors, Mikael Persbrandt, Ingela Olsson, Rikard Wolff, Stefan Larsson, Leif Andrée...

Not unexpectedly, Rickard Günther soon begins a close collaboration with Lars Norén. First "Sacrament", 1983; an elaborate amalgamation of two Norén plays and an immediate success. Four years later "Orestes". That they influence each other becomes clear when, in the early 90s, Günther draws inspiration from the French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès, one of the biggest names of the era. Koltès with his plays which in principle always take place in anonymous places, for example a harbor or an ordinary construction site.

It is not a bold guess that it was the Günther/Koltès combination that inspired Lars Norén for the masterpiece "Circle of Persons 1:3" with Sergel's Square as the venue. The family drama was on hiatus.

Few Swedish directors have been as flexible and at the same time paradoxically consistent. From Antonin Artaud and the "theatre of cruelty" to collaborations with several of the country's municipal scenes. He did Koltès at the city theaters in Malmö and Stockholm, at the latter also Tony Kushner's "Angels in America", both parts 1 and 2. The American drama was close to his heart, from Tennessee Williams to Sam Shepard and David Mamet. Even Woody Allen.

Not to mention Strindberg, Hjalmar Bergman, Barbro Smeds, Stig Larsson, Staffan Göthe, Sara Stridsberg.

A surprising versatility considering the "outsider" Rickard Günther gave the impression of being from the first moment. "Still, it's hard to say how, it will be theater that extends beyond what theater usually reaches", as Ingegärd Waaranperä wrote in his appreciative DN review of "Angels in America".

That is perhaps the secret of all great artists. Rickard Günther made his last set in 2019.