De Utvalgte/ Jon Fosse (Norway)
Skuggar / Shadows
This drama by one of the most distinctive contemporary playwrights, described as the successor to Ibsen, unfolds in a strange time and space, or more precisely outside these real coordinates. It evokes an atmosphere that we are familiar with from when we delve into our memories, where we carry on a dialogue with ourselves, with the figures we encounter or with whom we live. This compelling and somewhat mysterious performance takes audiences into the memories of several elderly people who have spent their entire lives together. They themselves remain silent, but their thoughts, memories, and feelings are formulated by young children. The children’s faces, effectively projected onto a screen, are reminiscences of their shared past. Out of the intimate and finely woven web of dialogues emerge little stories that give rise to some basic existential questions: Who are we? What signs do we leave behind ourselves in others?
De Utvalgte is one of the most distinctive independent theatre companies in Norway. In was founded in 1993 and is based in Oslo, and an element of its style is inter-genre oscillations between drama, concerts, film, and art performances; it experiments with new technologies, music and acting variations. Their way of working by improvising with a stage text generates a sense of extreme realism and direct contact with the public. An interaction between contrasting positions and the deconstruction of differences between roles and identities, between tragedies and comedies – these are the questions that periodically come up in the performances by De Utvalgte. The company has performed Shadows at prestigious European festivals and has been nominated for the Norwegian Hedda-Prisen award for best direction.
In Norwegian with Czech and English subtitles
http://www.deutvalgte.no/skuggar/shadows.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFzH1cbs_c
