Theater

Swiftly moving on from my personal posts.

This time I'll be talking about the three plays that has made me feel the most. Yes, I am talking about feelings still. Here we go. In no particular order.

1.

"The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" by Charles Dickens. Performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. First, lets get this thing straight. It's a marathon when it comes to theater performances. It's 8 and a half hours long. But in two parts, so you didn't have to watch all of it in the same time. Initially it was meant as an 8 weeks stretch, but it ended up playing for a very long time, and eventually it was filmed by channel 4 in England. This was back in 1982 and as I was very young, I never saw it on stage, but on the 26th December in 1982, it was showed on the Swedish public television.

I remember that day so clearly. It's strange, isn't it, what days in your life that really counts, and is clear in your head, and then so many days just disappear forever.

It was, of course, right after Christmas, and I was just hanging out at home. I was 14 years old, sitting in the couch in the living-room, watching the telly, which had absolutely nothing on that I was interested in. We had two channels at that time. Channel 1 and channel 2. Life was simple back then. Christmas had been pretty usual apart from that my dad had rented a film-camera from somewhere. Unfortunately in those days, you had to have a real strong lamp system in order to catch anything on that machine. So there was a lot of shouting of "Turn that damn thing away from my face, now!!" and "I can't stand that light!" and also, "I don't want to be filmed, stop it!". Some say that it ruined the whole Christmas that year, but I loved it. I used it as much as I could. I filmed the family, asking silly questions, and I invited friends over to be interviewed. It was a lot of fun. My sister Eva had Julia in her belly, and Malin was barely 2 years old and the cutest little thing the world had ever seen. (according to me) Never mind.

So, I was sat there, full from all Christmas candy.

For some reason, no one was there, apart from me of course.

And the introducer presented the play, I remember the words precisely: "We now have the honor of showing a unique adaption of Nicholas Nickleby, performed by the Royal Shakespear Company. I hope you'll enjoy! "

Yawning, I wasn't even sure that I'd sit through the first five minutes. I mean, it really sounded stuffy and boring.

But I had nothing better to do, so I started to watch. The first evening was 4 ½ hours long. It seriously felt like at the most an hour. It was extremely gripping. The actors made it so real, and I felt myself being inside the story, completely taken in by it. It was beautiful, it was ugly, and it was raw. I could not wait for the second part. It was shown the day after, on the 27th. I was giddy all day long, thinking about the hours of beauty ahead. The filming continued, we only had the camera a few days more, and I intended to make the most of it. It was fun, but my mind was on this other world, where I was all persons in the same time.

Watching the second part, I wept because it would be the last of it.

Was it any good? Yes and more yes. Nothing has taken me more by surprise, and it was then I started to really see theater, both eyes, all mind open.

2.

The second play was also on the television/movie screen. Perhaps I like theater on television or in the cinema better, it's a lot more free, and if it is bad, as truth be told, it often is, I can turn the machine off, or walk out of the movie theater and never think of it again. Whereas going to the theater it is live of course and I'd feel absolutely awful if I were to step out. What a rude thing to do, those actors on stage will actually notice, and their energy level will lower itself for each person leaving. I can't do that to anyone anytime.

I am not absolutely certain that this second play was meant for a live audience. It's written by, and directed by an old favorite of mine, Lars von Trier. The play name is Dogville. Dogville came to the movie theaters 2003 and I saw it right away, I even remember which cinema it was, but it is long gone now.

Now Dogville is, as Nicholas Nickleby, very raw and without many props and very little scenery. I had never been a big fan of Nichole Kidman prior to this, but she plays the main character Grace Margaret Mulligan in a way I'd never seen before. The stage is painted in white stripes, marking the roads and houses. At first it felt a bit strange, but after only a few minutes, you actually see the houses, you know what the town look like.

The story is rather trivial, the beautiful woman, coming to a small, and poor, mining town. She is chased by someone or many people, and without knowing why, the villagers decide to protect her. She only has to perform some favors for the towners. Naturally, it all goes astray and she becomes a slave of the community. (not in a good way by any shape or form)

It's simplicity is enticing. The actors amazing. I've never seen anything like it, and I doubt I'll ever see something like Dogville again. But I've watched it a few times, always discovering new stuff in there, things i missed before.

It's an amazing movie/play, and I am so glad that I found it.

3.

This is actually a play that I saw recently, with my mother. It was in Swedish, but I'll try to describe it here in English.

It's Sunday the 9th October 2016. The play is called "Love letters"

I also have to add here, that I was very nervous about going, because of my phobia, and I thought I'd be too scared to enjoy. I was wrong.

Lets first look at the stage. a long table. Just normal plain wood. There are two chairs behind them, normal, no noticeable chairs.

That's all in decor.

In comes two people. One man, one woman. Both elderly, probably over 80 years old. (Like my mom. I know how youthful you can be at 80, it feels like my mom never left the giggly stage of 12 sometimes. (that's a good thing!) )

The man and woman, sit down on the chairs, each with a stack of normal A4 papers on their desks in front of them.

Being a judgmental woman of the twenty-first century, where things are fast and crazily simple, I was thinking to myself that this would be a torturous couple of hours. I was thinking that we could always leave in the intermission.

Then the man, played by Iwar Wiklander takes up a paper from the stack, and reads out loud. He speaks like a very young child, as he says "Do you like me? I like you"

That's the start of a 52 years long exchange of letters.

The woman (as a girl) replies to the letter, and in the beginning they are short, little notes, between the upper class girl and the working class boy. The girl (later woman) played by Birgitta Ulfsson (who by the way, speak a real strong Finnish/Swedish accent which was hard to understand at first, but at the end just made the play go deeper..) , doesn't really like writing, she likes talking, face to face, but she is being lured in to this mode of communication by the boys/man's necessity and eagerness.

This is a love story that never happens. This is the story of two friends, but always with the undertone that some day, in the future, they'll meet and they will be the lovers they're meant to be. It's about those letters that they write, year in and year out. Always as honest as anything can be. Good or bad, light or strong.

The two actors read the letters, I don't know if the words are on the papers or not, it's so involving and so full of emotions, when they, through the letters show their vulnerability to each-other, all through their lives, in various schools, through boyfriends and girlfriends and marriages and work-places. We hear it all.

In the intermission I can't wait to get back in again.

I know it's silly and a bit unoriginal really to say that I laughed out loud and that I cried. But I did. I laughed so my stomach hurt. And then I cried so hard that I made a fool out of myself. At the end, I cried enough to not being able to applaud these amazing actors.

Throughout the whole play, they sat down on those chairs, just reading out loud. And it was heart-breaking, and it was good, and it was huge. I still find myself both laughing and crying at the same time, when I think of it.

(Funny fact: The two actors are actually married to each other in real life)

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That's it for today (I hope)