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teejaysnow · 16 days

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It’s 04:00, I’m on the nightbus back to Stockholm (where I will arrive at around 06:10) - and no, I don’t regret all of my life choices. Yet.

My plan for today was to get a hot chocolate at Kaffebrenneriet, do some shopping at Outland and Platekompaniet, and then head over to Dramatikkens hus to watch six scriptwriters from Den Norske Filmskolen “revive the art of theatre”.

Well, at least I got my chocolate - but the shopping spree at Outland was cut short because of a fire alarm, and I didn’t find anything I wanted at Platekompaniet. So the scriptwriters better be reviving the hell outta that theatre, thanks.

First off, I did find Dramatikkens hus after circling the place only once. (Without google maps, I’d probably still be looking for it - they don’t really advertise their existence, do they?) Also, it’s definitely not bigger on the inside - which was good since I’d forgotten to bring my glasses and is pretty much blind as a bat without them. Usually not a problem, my sonar system is pretty good - but for theatre performances I prefer to rely on my glasses, thanks.

So, we all got our hands stamped (well, when I say stamped…), a small program (well, when I say program…), and a lottery ticket - which I suspect was a scam (I mean, as someone with quite a few memories she’d like to forget, I had high hopes for that lottery prize) and were then set free to find a seat. I found a nice one by the wall and curled up to enjoy the show(s).

Anyway - from here on, there be spoilers:

The first play was the lottery one. As I said, I had high hopes for my I19 ticket, but… yeah, I’m pretty sure it was rigged… 😏

Anyway, it was a pretty interesting play. The lottery winner was adamant that she regretted nothing despite the host dragging up things like making her younger sister drink her own urine (thanks for that mental image). It wasn’t until the host talked about how she’d sexually abused someone that the winner started to get uncomfortable and denying it had ever happened. She would never. She wasn’t that kind of person. And anyway, he was a guy, guys wanted sex. Also, guys wanted her. Finally she accepted that she might have been guilty of abuse and asked to get her memory removed. After some further thought, she instead wanted the guy’s memory to be removed. And after even more thought she decided that they both should keep their memories, thus turning down the prize, because it would be weird no matter whose memory got removed.

There were no curtain calls between the sets (well, there was no curtain either, so 🤷🏻‍♀️), only some nifty stagehands moving and removing the few props each scene had. So for Bruduljen, they produced a table and two chairs.

I was looking forward to this one. I read and really liked Camilla’s photobook, which felt very stream of consciousness-y, so I was interested to see if she’d also use that style for script writing. (The answer was no, but I still liked the play a lot.) A teacher and the mother of a girl that had assaulted her were working on a report on what had happened. The mother was trying to soften the language - was it really an assault, wasn’t it more of an argument that got out of hand? Did she really punch you, wasn’t it more of a slap? Talking about how she has a picture of her five year old daughter with her face full of ice cream taped to the refrigerator, wondering what happened to that sweet girl who now colour her hair and have a… well, rather colourful language to match? The mother and the teacher got into a shouting match, then there was an actual fight where the teacher’s ptsd from the assault kicked in and she hid under the table, and then there was a sweet (and very funny) bit where the mother tried to coax the teacher out from under there. And then they went back to work on the report.

Stagehands in to exchange the table and chairs for a sofa with a… well, body, I guess? Enter my favourite play of the night.

The description of this one gave me a bit of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf vibes beforehand. Afterwards? Yeah, I’m still sticking with old Virginia here. It’s really funny with some pretty loud arguments in between. As well as a whole cooked turkey thrown on the floor. Twice. I guess nothing says Christmas like a good family argument? Even if one third of the family is sitting dead on the sofa…

The play began with mum talking to her (very dead) hubby and offering him whisky. Which he - surprisingly enough - didn’t drink. She blamed it on it being cheap whisky - me, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have drank it even if it had been Talisker. Enter daughter, who complains about the smell. I wonder why 🤔 She also complains about rats. I wonder why 🤔 Exit mum to the kitchen to fetch the turkey - leading to my favourite joke of the night (that didn’t get a laugh - I wonder why?? 😠) where the daughter pours a glass of whisky, holds it out to her dad and with an absolutely perfect delivery says “Whisky?”. Anyway, enter the turkey, daughter throws it to the ground while yelling at her mother in english, picks it up, hands it to her mum, and apologises - only for her mother to throw it to the ground while yelling back, also in english. Then the doorbell goes off and her mum asks if the daughter had invited anyone. Which she had. People from the funeral parlour. Her mum still doesn’t want to let go of her dead husband, so the daughter agrees not to let them in and that they can all just sit and wait for death and then get buried together. Always look on the bright side of death, I guess.

Okay, so out with the sofa, in with… nothing? Except for two actors, that is. So this was basically my reason for going to Oslo. Well, this and Kaffebrenneriet’s hot chocolate.

Now, let’s start with the fact that the Bergen accent is not my friend, so… the struggle was real. I most definitely didn’t get all of the dialogue.

The play was about a seventeen year old drama student wanting to do a Chekhov play topless (but I’d say she definitely gave off more Shakespeare’s Ophelia vibes with the whole waif-y dancing and singing). Anyway, she baited the drama teacher about it and how she felt that Nina would definitely have her boobs out. The drama teacher didn’t fully agree, trying to argue that it was a school play and the sixteen year old boys watching would just see her boobs. The student argued that it would be Nina’s boobs they saw, not hers. (I think both me and the drama teacher doubted that the boys would make that distinction) The student kept provoking the teacher, calling him out about having liked to see her boobs. The teacher altered between confessing that he had and saying that he hadn’t and that he was being her teacher. It all finished with her dancing off the stage while humming an eerie melody, apparently off to drown herself in the river (as I said - Ophelia vibes) Between this and Kunsten er død, I have a feeling Tarjei is in his “exploring what art really is” era.

Anyway - no stagehands this time since we were getting another props free play.

This one was the age old story of boy leaving a party early because ex is there with her new beau, ex comes after him and calls him out on it, boy admits to it. Although a bit more complicated. (Don’t get me wrong, I did like this one.) So, boy and girl used to be a couple when they were younger. At seventeen, girl got pregnant. Girl then lost the baby, which led to the break up - apparently without the two of them really talking about it. Until now. Let’s just say there were some left over feelings still around and they kept skipping around the stage, getting closer and closer to each other. Until they got very close. And then her phone rang and it all crumbled into pieces. Boy is about to walk away, girl is waiting for her boyfriend to drive her home - and then we get a fifteen minute flash forward indicating that there will be an accident. Boy imagines asking (what we now know is future dead) girl to tell their unborn baby that he loves her. Sad now. (Also, all the actors were great, but I think these two were my favourites.)

And now the stagehands are back for the final play. Hooray! Enter a park bench and one actor - who is taking a magazine test on sexuality. S&M. Whips. Dogs. (I might have misheard that last one. At least I hope I did.). This is when actor number two arrives and starts going on about Will Smith and Chris Rock. (Both me and actor number one are of the opinion that it’s been years, just get over it.) Actor two talks about having sex with multiple people - which actor one quickly labels “poly” and - after a bit of explaining - actor two happily accepts. They continue to talk about the sexuality test and actor one goes full gossip girl and spills about how his girlfriend and a male friend got the same high score on the sadist category. They then do a bit of fuckboy sniggering until actor two shoves actor one hard enough for him to kick over his soda bottle. And that soda had cost him thirty crowns, thank you very much. So actor one tries to fight actor two over it. Very unsuccessfully. So actor one ends up lying on the ground moaning while actor two returns to the bench and starts up on the whole Will and Chris thing again. Actor one yells at him to stop (otherwise I’d have probably done it 😒), and actor two realises that actor one laying on the ground whimpering meant he’s masochistic - which is the perfect pairing for his sadist girlfriend. And then they all lived happily ever after.

The whole thing took about 90 minutes - which meant I had eons of time to catch my bus. I even had time to meditate a bit over the Opera House by night.

And now, here I am on a bus back to Stockholm, bum complaining about the uncomfortable seat, head complaining about the lack of sleep, stomach complaining about not enough food, and bladder complaining about having had too much to drink. And I’m still not regretting any of my life choices. Today’s been fun!

#tarjei #filmforfattere gjenoppliver teaterkunsten #that bergen accent is my villain origin story

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alterlove2021 · 2 years

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My trip to Norway is complete! Not only did I get to see the amazing performance of Tarjei Sandvik Moe in 20. November twice but I also got to meet him afterwards and chat about the show! Here’s the rundown:

During the very last scene, he asks if anyone has anything to say. In the first performance, no one said anything. So he picks up his bag of weapons and leaves the theatre to devastating effect. So today in the second and perhaps last performance ever, it felt so much more intense. It was a tour de force performance that had me in tears by the end. So when he asked for last words, I spoke up in English, “Don’t do it.” He asked why, and I said “You can still have a first kiss, get a dog, live. It will get better” referencing earlier moments in the play. He responded to the effect of “it doesn’t matter, it’s too late.” It was so powerful. He still left.

So…outside after the play, he first came out still in costume to say bye to some friends in attendance. Then a short time later, our small group still patiently waiting, he came out with a school friend. He saw us, and looked unsure of what to do, walk away in the direction he was going or turn towards us, so I just called out to him “That was an incredible performance. Thank you!” And with that, he turned towards us. Since I spoke entirely in English, he asked if we came from far, and we told him we came from around the world (US, England, Korea, Sweden as well as Norway), and he was genuinely surprised. He asked about our thoughts on the performance, especially since some of us couldn’t understand Norwegian. I told him how his emotion, body language, tics conveyed so much plus I read about it in advance, and he joked about doing homework for the show. We also chatted about his suntan/burn from playing football today. We all took pictures with him. He was gracious and kind. Thank you Tarjei for being amazing. And thanks to my skamily being there with me! @evakcardamom and others!