Siste sang – 2009Last Song – 2009
Forestillingen hadde premiere 4. desember 09 på Grusomhetens Teater i Oslo, Hausmania.
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Idé og regi: Lars Øyno
Skuespillere: Odille Heftye Blehr, Lars Brunborg og Rita Lindanger
Kostymer: Gjøril Bjercke Sæther
Scenografi: Lars Øyno og Jan Skomakerstuen
Lys: Jan Skomakerstuen
Inspisient: Janne Hoem
Produsent: Per Bogstad Gulliksen
Masker: Trude Sneve
Teknisk design: Thor Eriksen
Tekniker: Thomas Sanne
Video: Tone A. Gellein
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[eight_columns]Lautreamont døde nesten før han dukket opp i Paris, kun 24 år gammel. Han ble beskrevet som en høy ung mann, tynn og med litt bøyd rygg, blek hudfarge, lang hår som falt nedover pannen, skarp i stemmen. Han virket trist, taus og innadvendt. Han klaget ofte over smertefulle migrener. Comte de Lautreamont skrev Maldorors Sanger og etterlot seg Poesier – et forord til en bok som aldri ble skrevet. Etter hans død i 1870 forsvinner alle spor; ingen husker å ha sett han og det eksisterer kun ett eneste uskarpt fotografi. Det går 50 år før surrealistene oppdager hans verk, [/eight_columns]André Breton kaller ham surrealismens far og Salvador Dalí er blant dem som trykker han til sitt bryst. Siste Sang av Lars Øyno tar utgangspunkt i Comte de Lautreamonts liv og verk. Forestillingen handler om døden og forfatterens siste timer. Den handler om råskapen i mennesket og selve tilværelsen. Drøm, virkelighet, dyr og mennesker går i hverandre i et forsøk på å forstå hva mennesket egentlig er. Lautreamont spilles av Odille Heftye Blehr. Vi følger mannens innvendige kamp og hans kalde, nådeløse blikk på livets grunnbetingelser.
Øvelse til siste sang
Bilder av siste sang
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«There is only one animal… the animal is a principle.»
Balzac
«Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt… doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the different degress of wickedness.»
Isidore Ducasse
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Inspired by: Comte de Lautreamont
Consept and direction: Lars Øyno
With: Odille Heftye Blehr, Lars Brunborg and Rita Lindanger
Scenography: Lars Øyno and Jan Skomakerstuen
Lighting: Jan Skomakerstuen
Costumes: Gjøril Bjercke Sæther
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[eight_columns]Lautreamont nearly died before he had reached Paris, just 24 years old. He was described as a tall young man, slender and a little stooped, pale skin colour, a sharp voice, and long hair covering his forehead. He seemed sad, silent and introverted. He often complained about painful migrains. Comte de Lautreamont wrote The songs of Maldoror and the posthumous text Poetics – a preface to a book never to be written. After his dead in 1870 all traces disappear; nobody remember having seen him, and only one blurred photography remains. 50 years pass until the surrealists discover his work. André Breton appoints him to the father of surrealism, and Salvador Dalí is among those who embrace him.
«There is only one animal… the animal is a principle.»
Balzac [/eight_columns]
[eight_columns]Last Song by Lars Øyno is based upon the life and work of Comte de Lautreamont. The play is about the death and the last hours of the author. It deals with the cruelty of the human being and the very existence. Dream, reality, animals and human beings are merged in an attempt to understand what the human being really is. Lautreamont is performed by Odille Heftye Bleher. We follow the internal struggle of the man, and his cold and merciless view of the basic conditions of life.
«Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt… doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the different degress of wickedness.»
Isidore Ducasse [/eight_columns]
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Eerie Song of the Swans
Grusomhetens Teater: Last Song
When Grusomhetens Teater succeeds, as is the case with Last Song, the group expands the concept of performing art.
Lars Øyno is one of our most original performing artists. It is now 20 years since he produced his first performance at Trønderlag Theater, where he was engaged as an actor on a permanent basis, and 17 years since Grusomhetens Teater (The Theater of Cruelty) became his own company. His role model is the Frenchman Antonin Artaud, the source of the concept of the ‘Theater of Cruelty’, and Lars Øyno endeavors to create “theater with the body’s own musicality , its breath and poetry, as the origin of all action.”
On Friday, the theater premiered, Comte de Lautréamont’s Last Song, where Lars Øyno has been inspired by the French writer, Isidore Ducasse, for the second time. The first time was with the performance, Poetries, in 2000. In 1870, Isidore Ducasse died alone in his hotel room in Paris. He was 24 years old. Under the pseudonym, Comte de Lautréamont, he had published, Maldoror’s Songs (Les Chantes de Maldoror), a book that did not receive much attention at the time. But 50 years later, the Surrealists rediscovered his work, and today Isidore Ducasse is considered one of the 18th century’s greatest poets.
In the middle of the stage, a worn school desk and a chair. A figure in a men’s suit comes in, kneeling, it slowly and deliberately makes its way to an old fashioned organ, and sits down carefully in front of the instrument. He is followed by a middle-aged man. Casually attired with his sleeves rolled up, he resembles a hotel concierge, but the rod that he brandishes brings to mind a school head master. Virtuously, he presents a brilliant, exuberant, and rather acrobatic performance, which stands in stark contrast to the formally dressed youth’s tormented movement to the instrument. He is not completely supreme though: at times, his outstretched hands, with all their might, deter an unknown and invisible threat, and soon he is confronted with a new challenge: He must carry another suited figure, the organist’s alter-ego.
After one final lash with his rod, the older man leaves the younger man sitting at the desk, and accompanied by notes from the organ, the young man fights an increasingly desperate confrontation with death, where he conjures forth humanity’s affinity with birds, fish, and insects, and finally accepts his hidden animality. A gleaming black beetle scuttles towards the actor like a menacing Angel of Death, while a majestic eagle attentively follows every movement. In the end, death becomes a mild reconciliation, a dancing ritual that leads to an all-devouring and peaceful darkness.
I experienced, Last Song, as an intense, almost frightening, narrative of youthful curiosity and despair, in contrast to the self-assured world of adults. Yet, Lars Øyno’s uniqueness and strength lies in his ability to present performances that, presumably, arouse varying associations in different spectators. Øyno follows Artaud’s imperative that theater should not be, “to act out written plays, but to give some form of material expression to everything that lies hidden, undisclosed, or buried deeply in the human mind,” and that will be different for each and every one of us.
Slow and captivating movements, hypnotic repetitions, the three actors complete physical presence radiates a terrifying, fascinating dread that is intensified by the props, lighting, and costumes that we are unable to describe more fully in this review. When Lars Øyno succeeds, like he does here, then Grusomhetens Teater radically expands the concept of performing art. Not many can do the same.
This review was printed in, Klassekampen, Monday, December 7th 2009
In, Klassekampen, there was no room to discuss the set design and costumes. My homepage does make room, though, which I am happy for. Gjøril Bjercke Sæther had also made the fantastic costumes for, The Mountain Bird, Grusomhetens Teater’s last production. Here she includes small and very period correct details, making the actor’s costumes an expression for their roles’ personality – most vividly in the scene where Odille Blehr undergoes a convincing sex change. The program does not mention the Set designer, yet the stage backdrop is fascinating in all its grey monotony, which is only broken by a few old fashion anatomical charts and a few cheery animal pictures. Another evocative element is the window that looks out upon the roofs of Paris, and a soft, dark blue night sky.
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Rehearsal for Siste Sang
Images from Last Song