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The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny - A Pop Opera presented by Theatre Junction Grand
Theatre Junction Grand
Wednesday, October 13 - Saturday, October 16

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Artistic partners Anneke Bonnema and Hans Petter Dahl say they looked to their own lives when creating The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny — A Pop Opera, which is making its North American debut at Theatre Junction Grand. Bonnema’s and Dahl’s company — MaisonDahlBonnema — is presenting the show along with Brussels-based Needcompany.

Ricky (Bonnema) and Ronny (Dahl) are an urban couple who are disillusioned with the world around them. “They are saturated with the world, and somehow it doesn’t work for them anymore,” says Dahl.

As Ricky and Ronny sing, “How did I end up in this awful situation?”

“The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny is a possible self-portrait in a parallel world,” Bonnema explains, illustrating the connection to her and Dahl’s life. “We travel all the time, we do so many things, still we feel numb by all the impressions and it doesn’t affect us anymore.”

The two have toured The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny in a dozen different countries. At the time of this interview, they were in New York touring another show before heading to Calgary.

Netherlands-born Bonnema and Dahl, from Norway, refer to this condition of emptiness and alienation as a disease that is common amongst people today. “It is something you can easily get in this society, when all these commercial things say, ‘If you do this, you’ll feel better,’ and they don’t work,” says Dahl.

In The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny, the two characters resort to inventing things in their minds to help combat their sense of emptiness. In their quest to find some meaning in their lives, they eventually become engulfed by their own fantasies. “It’s unclear what is real and what is unreal,” says Dahl.

Bonnema adds, “It’s a tragic story of people who are trying to live their lives and trying to get happy, and it goes wrong.”

Bonnema doesn’t like the word “escape,” used in reference to Ricky and Ronny’s descent into a fantasy world. “We are often confronted with that word ‘escape,’ but it’s actually a good thing they go inside. We talk about fantasy as something more real than the so -called real world, if you think of fantasy as thoughts and feelings that are connected to you.”

In the show the use of fantasy goes “totally wrong, because the fantasy is much too big and the consequences are impossible to grasp,” says Dahl.

This is the first opera Bonnema and Dahl have created. They sing the dialogue, with subtitles projected on a screen to make sure the audience grasps the lyrics, even though they perform in English.

“It’s outside the normal opera connotation. It’s a very daily way of doing opera that uses small talk and pop music,” says Dahl. Bonnema wrote the lyrics, which are peppered with “fuck yous.”

“In some countries, people get the humour, and they laugh a lot,” says Bonnema, adding that they’re interested to see the response it gets from a North American crowd.

They have already composed a second part to the show, which debuted this year, and are contemplating creating a third instalment to Ricky and Ronny’s story.