The first thing you need to know about the new Broadway play “Festen” is that the title is Danish for “celebration. “The work, which opens at the Music Box Theatre on April 9, is adapted from the 1998 film of the same name, perhaps the most famous example of the radical Denmark-born film movement known as Dogme 95. The second thing you need to know is that the word is used ironically.

The plot does hinge on a family celebration. But the festivities go south early on, when eldest son Christian stands up and proposes what may be the most unwelcome toast in dinner-party history. How unwelcome? Reactions range from denial and discomfort to a sound pummeling of the toastmaker, rampant plate-smashing, and the utter disintegration of a once-close clan.

Director Rufus Norris – whose reputation was made by the critically hailed London production of “Festen” – knew the story was a dramatic gold mine. And like a screenwriter making a pitch in Hollywood, he’s able to boil it down to a single sentence: “A man comes back home to tell the truth.” It’s a good line, and if he used it on originating producer Marla Rubin, it worked: She gave the then-somewhat-unsung director the job.

Make no mistake – Mr. Norris very much wanted the job. From the moment he saw the film, which was directed by Thomas Vinterberg, it rocketed to the top of his list of all-time favorite flicks. He nattered on about it constantly while directing David Eldridge’s play “Under the Blue Sky” at the Royal Court in 2000. So when Mr. Eldridge called him to say he’d been approached by Ms. Rubin to adapt the work for the stage, he had, shall we say, a strong reaction.

“As soon as I heard about it, I had my eyes set upon it,” said Mr. Norris, a tall, trim man of 41, with short hair, a square jaw, thick eyebrows, and a careful, serious manner. “I did everything to position myself.” Including asking Mr. Eldridge to press his case with Ms. Rubin? “I didn’t ask him. I completely steamrolled him with demands.”

Mr. Eldridge didn’t need much convincing. “David Hare says that directors are either visionaries or editors,” said Mr. Eldridge, speaking via cell hone from the backseat of a London taxi. “They arrive with an agenda, or they let it evolve from what appears in a rehearsal room. Rufus is fairly unique in that he has both of those qualities. He’s an idea man, but also he’s enormously generous in terms of actors and their creativities and in terms of re spect for the written word.There’s never any question of one word changing without a dialogue with me.”

Between these men, however, an entire dialogue can sometimes require only five words.

During “Under the Blue Sky,” the twodeveloped a handy lexicon of code phrases. One example: While staging a sex scene in “Blue Sky,” budget-conscious Mr. Norris, mulling over the dear cost of laundering sheets, wanted to change one character’s drink from the potentially staining Barcardi and Coke.”I said to David,’Maybe it should be vodka and lemonade, or gin or tonic. We wouldn’t see it; it would be like water.’ And David said, ‘No, it’s Bacardi and Coke.’ Now if I push a point too far, David just says ‘No, it’s Bacardi and Coke.’ He’s basically saying back off. We have loads of those.”

There’s no Bacardi or Coke served at the “Festen” dinner, but there are bottles of red and white wine. And the invitees down loads of those. The wouldbe revelers gather themselves on one side, Last-Supper style, of the set’s primary feature: a long, beautifully appointed dining table. The stemware, china, and white tablecloth fairly gleam,the only spot of brightness in designer Ian MacNeil’s pitch-dark Scandinavian set.

“This is the only time I’ve worked on a play with a designer where the starting point of the design has been the lighting,” Mr. Norris said. “The story is so strong and the humanity of it is so beautiful and unbearable at the same time, that all you want to look at is the people.”To achieve this effect, the production is lit almost entirely from the sides of the stage, an approach used frequently in the world of dance, but not as much in theater. “What you get is this effect of people floating. If you stand on the stage,” the director said, “you’ll see the actors are completely blind. It’s incredibly bright. They can’t see anything.”

Floating is something Mr. Norris has gotten used to. The son of a developmental administrator who helped put the governments of newly independent nations on their feet, Mr. Norris was conceived in Tanzania and raised in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Malaysia, until his family finally returned to Britain when he was 12. His rootlessness notwithstanding, he claims he was never lonely. “I come from a family of six children. We’re all very close. There’s only nine years separating us. Even though I grew up all over the place, I grew up with a gang. In a sense, the film ‘Festen’ affected me on a human level because of the relationship between the three siblings.They have their own laws, their own rules, and are filled to the brim with love. The story is really painful because they love each other.”

Mr. Norris hopes “Festen” will strike Broadway audiences as an example of a phenomenon he calls “total theater,” which he described as a place “where an audience will go with you if you do it well. If we find those moments; and the rhythm of it works; and the actors are all engaged and their ownership is complete; and the style in which we’re doing it is suited to the story – then I think this is the theater that I want to see.”

Sounds about as difficult to pull off as a successful dinner party.

“Festen” from April 9 (Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th Street, 212-239-6200).