The Copenhagen Trilogy
Boundless and Broken
The Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen (1917–1976) was boundless. Her autobiographical novels Childhood, Youth and Dependency are sharp, raw and intensely personal. These three masterpieces – the highlights of her oeuvre – now come together in one performance: The Copenhagen Trilogy. Directed by Eline Arbo and performed by, among others, Maria Kraakman, The Copenhagen Trilogy is a production about class mobility, womanhood, artistry, passion, love and self‑destruction.
Run time tba
Genre Theatre
Language Dutch
Surtitles English, Thu 29 Oct, Thu 10 & 17 Dec
Premiere Tue 20 Oct 2026
The Copenhagen Trilogy
The Copenhagen Trilogy shows the painfully honest story of Tove Ditlevsen: an unflinching writer who became famous for her deeply personal, masterful novels about her own life. The life of a girl growing up in a poor neighbourhood in Copenhagen, with ambitions far greater than her background seemed to allow. And later, the life of a public figure pushing at the boundaries of her time and facing constant criticism from a society not ready for her voice – for her perseverance, her willingness to swim against the current, and her uncompromising insistence on forging her own path.
-|-
At the same time, her insatiable hunger for life pulls her towards the darker sides of being human. Throughout her adult life, Tove struggles with addiction and her mental health. Her longing for individuality, for love, for becoming someone, slowly transforms her into a person she no longer recognises. Her longing and her fame ultimately become her downfall.
Tove Ditlevsen was a mother, a wife, a writer and an addict. As dangerous as she was brilliant. She was an insecure doubter and a shameless brute. She was painfully honest. Tove Ditlevsen was a radical artist.
Eline Arbo about The Copenhagen Trilogy
“I grew up with the work of Tove Ditlevsen, introduced to it by my mother. Her novels and her life continue to inspire me. Ditlevsen is the protagonist in her own story, constantly walking the line between fiction and reality. She is her own muse and her greatest enemy. That’s why her work is perfect material for theatre, where I also blur the boundaries between fiction and reality and search for moments where the political and personal collide and strengthen each other. I relate to her all-consuming need to create—and how that drive can sometimes be destructive. I see myself in her defiance of societal expectations, in her questions about how systems function and who they serve. I recognize her nerve, her intensity, her shamelessness. She was a radical woman whose voice still resonates generations after her death. Everyone should read her books.”
Tove Ditlevsen – Feminist avant la lettre
The work of Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen is once again remarkably popular in 2026. Her honest and direct style – poetic yet vividly descriptive – resonates with a generation that values open conversations about mental health and the authenticity of lived experience. In her writing, she gives powerful expression to female experiences and perspectives. She wrote about motherhood, artistic creation, marriage, and the tension between personal ambition and imposed expectations.
-|-
Raving reviews of the English translation of The Copenhagen Trilogy in The New York Times and The Guardian granted Ditlevsen international cult status.
Eline Arbo is Artistic Director at ITA since September 2023. From 2022 she was already linked to ITA as Associate Artistic Director. From January 2023, Arbo was appointed Ibsen Artist in Residence, an initiative of the Philip Loubser Foundation, which gives directors with an international ambition the opportunity to develop themselves artistically.
In season 25|26, she will create Copenhagen Trilogy (Tove Ditlevsen) and her stagings of Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin), The Laws (Connie Palmen), Prima Facie (Suzie Miller), The Wall (Marlen Haushofer) and The End of Eddy (Édouard Louis), will be reprised.
Credits
by Tove Ditlevsen
adaptation Peter van Kraaij and Eline Arbo
directed by Eline Arbo
translator Lammie Post-Oostenbrink
music design Thijs van Vuure
scenographer Pascal Leboucq
costume design Rebekka Wörmann
lighting design Varja Klosse
dramaturgy Rinke Brans
assistant director Emma Deleu
private producers Jeroen van Ingen & Jaap Kooijman, Bertil van Kaam & Felix van der Heijden, Tineke Boersma & Frans Eusman, Paul Veerman & Marijke van der Duin
this production is supported by Ammodo Art
This performance is supported by
