VR model of Komediehuset in Bergen

Komediehuset was built in Bergen in 1800 and destroyed in 1944 during WWII. It is a venue that holds many clues to Ibsen’s creative process throughout his career.

Ibsen worked as a stage director here from 1851 to 1857, and 22 of his plays were staged here during his lifetime.

Working from 1934 survey plans, seating charts, and architectural records from the 1870s, our research laboratory has rebuilt the theatre as a living space for research and teaching — not just its architecture, but its stage machinery, lighting, acoustics, and the sets of three Ibsen plays.

The model was developed by Julie Holledge and Ortelia, with set design by Mary Moore. The pedagogical strand of the project is led by Liyang Xia at the Centre for Ibsen Studies.

What you can do in the model

Inside the model, you can explore the spatial logic of Ibsen's dramaturgy and see meticulously reconstructed stage settings for three of his plays: Olaf Liljekrans, The Wild Duck, and John Gabriel Borkman — each designed by theatre designer Mary Moore to work within the Komediehuset's actual nineteenth-century stage machinery.

The laboratory also lets you hear the theatre. An acoustic model, built from recordings made in an anechoic chamber, reconstructs how Ibsen's dialogue would have sounded from different seats in the 1850s auditorium — including two historical versions of the auditorium itself, from 1857 and the 1870s, reflecting how Bergen's theatre-going public changed over that period.

The Wild Duck set is now available on Meta Quest 3 with a built-in actor mode: users can step into the role of one of several characters and perform their lines directly on the reconstructed stage, using a "palm card" in place of a script. Rather than just observing the space, you inhabit it — giving a far more embodied sense of how Ibsen's stage directions actually play out.

Current research

Our current work uses the model to study Ibsen's dramaturgical use of the body — how movement, gesture, and spatial power operate as a systematic language running alongside his dialogue. This research has already produced publications and has become a strong training ground for graduate students working on embodied and practice-based approaches to Ibsen.

Teaching and access

The Komediehuset laboratory is increasingly used as a teaching tool: students who find Ibsen's stage directions hard to visualise on the page often grasp them immediately once they can move through the space. We are now working with secondary school teachers to bring this approach into their own classrooms.

Recent developments in headset technology mean the laboratory can now be experienced through a standalone Meta Quest headset — no computer, wiring, or external sensors required — making it far more affordable and portable for schools and visiting researchers.

The Wild Duck's actor mode adds a further dimension for teaching: students can rehearse a character's lines from a palm card while moving through the reconstructed set, turning close reading into embodied performance practice. For students who struggle to visualise Ibsen's stage directions on the page, this kind of first-person rehearsal offers a direct, physical way in.

School teachers are welcome to contact us to arrange a class visit to the Centre, where students can learn about the VR project, try the model themselves, and find out more about Ibsen's physical scores. Because the Wild Duck model now runs on a standalone Meta Quest 3, it can also be integrated directly into an existing curriculum — we're happy to offer support and suggestions for learning activities to teachers who want to bring it into their own classrooms. (Contact Liyang Xia at liyang.xia@ibsen.uio.no if you are interested.)

Background research

Komediehuset is one of several venues reconstructed as part of the wider Visualising Lost Theatres project, whose background research — the historical, architectural, and archival groundwork behind the models — is documented at losttheatres.net. Since that book project, the Komediehuset model itself has been developed further, with new set designs, an acoustic model, and the interactive actor mode now available on Meta Quest 3.

Funding

The Komediehuset VR project is funded by The Centre for Ibsen Studies, together with grants from the Humanities Faculty, UiO.

Related publications

Tompkins, Joanne, Julie Holledge, Jonathan Bollen, and Liyang Xia. 2022. Visualising Lost Theatres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Xia, Liyang and Joanne Tompkins. 2023. “Virtual Praxis and Theatre Research: Textual Recovery”. In Tam, Kwok-kan (Eds.), Performance Arts: Research in the Age of Digital Revolution. Springer. ISSN 9789811992131. p. 19–37.

Bollen, Jonathan, Julie Holledge, and Joanne Tompkins. 2021. “Putting Virtual Theatre Models to Work: ‘Virtual Praxis’ for Performance Research in Theatre History.” Theatre and Performance Design 7, nos. 1–2: 6–23.

Holledge, Julie. 2021. “Theatre.” In Ibsen in Context, edited by Narve Fulsås and Tore Rem, 46–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Choice Outstanding Academic Titles 2022)

Holledge, Julie. 2023. “Virtual Praxis: Conducting Performance Research in Virtual Theatres.” In Performance Arts: Research in the Age of Digital Revolution, edited by Kwok-kan Tam, 39–54. Singapore: Springer, Digital Culture and Humanities 4.