HEIMSKRINGLA! OR THE STONED ANGELS – This was a pioneering presentation from WNET and first aired on November 6th, 1969.
Produced by Brice Howard, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by New York’s experimental La Mama Theater Troupe, this 90-minute work incorporated live action with the then-new visual arts approach of “Videospace” to retell some of the sagas from the old Norse history collection of the title.
Said Howard – “My version of Heimskringla! is that like an iceberg, it is one-eighth above the surface, seven-eighths below.”
A Nordic bard called a Skald narrated the creation of the world and the subsequent emergence of males and females.
From there the story was an often-surreal presentation of Leif Ericsson falling out with his fellow Vikings and discovering America, resulting in the enslavement and slaughter of Native Americans. All that plus a character being swallowed by a whale! John Scanlon and Gretchen MacLane starred.
Scenes setting the stage ranged from the funeral of the Viking Thorvald, who had been killed by his son Erik, to dissension over whether Thorvald should be given a pagan or a Christian burial to Leif Ericsson being encouraged to assassinate the new Norwegian King Olaf.
Next came semi-satirical scenes of Leif being thwarted in his assassination by polar bear scheme, then drugged and brainwashed into becoming a Christian like King Olaf. In this dramatization, Eric is sent to convert Greenland to make it part of Olaf’s Christian empire but overshoots his mark and lands in the New World instead.
Eric’s fellow traveler Fylgje Sylph forecasts the tragedies to come from this (presumed) first white visit to America. In the end the entire company is massacred to close the play.
Steve Seid’s review called this unusual production “anti-conformist” and said “With a freewheeling spirit, !Heimskringla! throws everything into the potboiler: Norse sagas, kachina dolls, the Seven Deadly Sins, King Olaf’s court, and an inflated white whale.”
Copies of the original Paul Foster screenplay (NOT the actual televised Videospace production) can be found HERE.
FOR MORE FORGOTTEN TELEVISION CLICK HERE.
Balladeer's Blog 
The older generation kept claiming back then that things used to be nicer in the earlier times, and we, as young people, laughed. Now I had to admit how better it used to be!!😜🤙🖖
Ha! I appreciate it.
Kind of like the dancers of “Momenshawnce”?
Sure, but with a lot of Modern Theater accoutrements.
YOU MEAN YOU REMEMBER “MOMENSHAWNCE?
Yep, they performed at schools when I was a kid.
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Logged, thanks!
Fascinating, and yet another insight to a world that is almost forgotten.
Yes, they went overboard with the experimental approach at times, but that just goes with the territory when it comes to pioneering.