CREDITS:
Title: ”THE HOSPITAL”
Length: Ca 70 min without pause
Premiere: Premiere at New Riga Theater in Latvia 26th of April 2005.
Norwegian premiere at Bergen International Festival 4th of June 2005.
Direction, choreography, script: Jo Strømgren
Performers: Guri Glans, Gunhild Aubert Opdal, Ingri Enger Damon
Scenography: Stephan Østensen/Jo Strømgren
Costume design: Catrine Gudmestad/Jo Strømgren
Music: Tauno Palo, Maria Tanase, Haukur Morthens, Pjotr Leschenko,
Alexander Bogov
Sound design: Lars Årdal
Lighting design: Stephen Rolfe
Lighting engineer: Leila Berg / Lise Risom Olsen
Sound engineer: Ken Ruben Theodorsen
Photographer: Knut Bry
Executive producer: Ann-Christin Danhammar
Project manager: Tine Rude
Produced by: Jo Strømgren Kompani
Co-producers: BIT Teatergarasjen (N), Norwegian National Theatre (N), Bergen International Festival (N), Rogaland Teater (N)
INTROTEXT:
In a not so remote country. Three nurses are stationed at a provincial clinic, a humanist outpost forgotten by both the sick and the healthy. The have very few patients. None actually. Something must be wrong, but no further instructions have yet arrived. The inevitable lack of motivation threatens to undermine their heroic nursery virtues and they decide to take counteraction by practicing exactly what they are educated to do - pain relief. The question is just who should each time volunteer to ungergo pain for the others to relieve...
THEME:
Isolated people in forgotten places. How to endure the emotional emptiness of a stagnated situation? Hope and nostalgia usually work well for a while, but what happens when the nostalgia is recycled into shreds and the hope has long ago faded away? The show starts where the performers decline to rather abnormal substitutes for real life experiences. The hazardous circle of self-inflicted pain and a following collective relief gives an emotional dynamic which under some conditions can remind of the ups and downs of normal daily life. Through this frame of painful abnormities comes a new kind of pain - that of recognising the substitute itself as a substitute and not a real experience. And further down the pain drain lies yet another painful question - whether the power of control belongs to oneself or the substitute. The theme is closely linked to the increasing amount of substitutes in contemporary life. Actions we do and things we use which give us a false sense of a rich and real life. Instead of introducing contemporary objects and situations onto stage, the performance seeks to create an isolated and surprising universe with few but associative elements regardless of time period or geographical identity. Nursery as a profession is traditionally utterly innocent and trustworthy. With high moral standards and tremendous sacrifice of personal needs, nurses have for centuries saved lives, treated, helped - and provided hope. This is an elementary associative base when the message circles around the task of helping oneself and solving one's own problems. Through being experts on pain relief but yet unable to overcome their own sufferings, their situation stand out as an apocalyptic witness to society itself. If one has the desire to associate in such direction. It is at least a sad little situation which can evoke a certain sympathy for the general attempt to solve a problem. A problem which indirectly matters us as viewers - with our own daily consumation of superficial substitutes.
STYLE:
Movement as a ground base. Associative abstraction of theatrical situations. Poetry in lighting design and visual aspects. Nonsense language as an important element, yet not being the dramaturgical vessel. The verbal contents will follow a phonetic alias variety, conecntrated on Russian, French, and Rumanian. The linguistic and physical skills of the performers opens up for a complex communicative style where elements are mixed symbiotically together. Humour is still an important associative tool, yet this time laughter of the outburst category is not preferred. The poetic low tone humour with a sore sympathy is the optimal communication key. The music style will stretch itself over wide geographical references. This in order to concieve a general valitidy of the associative material presented. Common for all musical elements is the nostalgic and melancholic awareness, the kind of sound that provoke emotion regardless of literary aspects. Music that appeals to a hidden latent pain of every human, contemporary or not.
STAGE:
The stage will present a relatively large set design, forming some hospital interiors in a 1950's style. The performes wear classic nursery costumes with additional accessoire. The twist to a rather realtistic visual setting is that everything, including costumes, are dirty. Extremely dirty. A place which is supposed to be clean and antiseptic in real life is smeared with grease, dust and stains from human liquids. Nevertheless, the performers treats the surroundings as if they were of the cleanest sort, giving the character of misjudgement by isolation. The set design and all equipment will be produced to fulfill a taylor fit into a minimum transportation volume. A complex production process with strong lightweight materials will continue the usual JSK expertise of detachable sets. High construction costs are measured to ensure optimal touring safety and performance quality.