Research area D
1.
Tale:
I’m laying in my bed
I am only a child
This is a child’s bed
The wallpaper is brown
The duvet is yellow
I’m breathing
I want to reach my hand out and turn on the lights
I can’t
I do not move
I lay there feeling the weight of my body against the mattress
Just breathing
Just staring at the wall
There is something there on the other side
There is something waiting behind the door
Short pause
Jørn Bjørn:
A stranger enters the room
Liv Hanne:
A darkness enters the room
The door closes behind it – and it /
stands there /
I can’t look at it
I can’t open my eyes
I want to shout but I am not able to and it /
bends over me /
– and grows. The darkness grows
and I’m just lying there unable to stop it unable to say anything –
Mummy – /
You cry, but /
nobody hears you
Mummy – I’m frightened
Liv Hanne:Maybe that’s where it startsThere in the dark
That first time you cry out, shout, reach for a handIn that moment when you awake and stare into the darkness and there are no other words than /
Jørn Bjørn: – Mummy
Liv Hanne:Or:
Jørn Bjørn:– No.
Liv Hanne: Or:
Jørn Bjørn: – Me –
Liv Hanne:Just that which you want and that which you are afraid of.Just the darkness all around you and /
Jørn Bjørn:you say your name.
Tale:Tale
Jørn Bjørn:Your name and then: afraid
Tale:Tale afraid
Liv Hanne:Liv Hanne afraid.
Jørn Bjørn:Jørn Bjørn afraid
Liv Hanne:Or – maybe it starts somewhere elseYour hungry but you are too small to reach the bread bin
Jørn Bjørn:Liv Hanne hungry
Liv Hanne:You’re thirsty, but cannot reach the jug of water
Jørn Bjørn:Liv Hanne thirsty
Liv Hanne:And you turn around looking to see if there is someone there that can help youthat can lift you upor are taller than you – and you shout
Jørn Bjørn:Thirsty!
A beat
Tale: But now
just now you are laying there in your bed
staring into the dark
Into that or who or it that is and isn’t there
Into your own imagination, maybe – and you do not want to be there anymoreTale /
Jørn Bjørn:– does not want to be here /
Liv Hanne:anymore
Tale:In the lack of something else you say /
Liv Hanne: – I do not want to /
Tale:be here
Liv Hanne: Just that
Tale:I want to. I do not want to –
Jørn Bjørn:Just me. In the dark.
Liv Hanne:And then /
the one that can help you. The one that can open the door, enter the room, turn on the lights and make everything OK again
Why isn’t she coming?
–
She’s coming
Tale:She’s not coming.
Why shouldn’t she come?
Tale:She’s just not –
She can’t hear me
She –
Liv Hanne:Wait!
Just wait.
I’m coming
I’m here
Tale:Sometimes I think these words must be the firstWords like:
– Help me
– Save me
– Stay with me through this
Sometimes I think these words must be the lastMaybe even the only ones we have
That everything we ever say centers around utterances like:
Help
Me
Stay
Here
Save me
Don’t go
And then we waitAnd then we listen for the answer
for someone to come
until they are there
until everything is OK
2.
Jørn Bjørn:A man stops us in the street. Says:
Liv Hanne:Help me.
Jørn Bjørn:Someone we think are about to leave us, says:
Liv Hanne:Stay!
Jørn Bjørn:On her deathbed a relative admits to a crime none of us even new had happened:
I was twenty I was too young – too young to know what I was doing
Tale:I took all her money
Jørn Bjørn:Or /Liv Hanne:It was me that torched the place –
Or /
Liv Hanne:I had anotherAll those years there was always another It was never just youYou were never the one I loved
Jørn Bjørn:–
Liv Hanne:I’m sorryI should have told you beforeCan you ever forgive me?
Silence
Liv Hanne:As long as we talk As long as we kick, scream, shout As long as there is somebody there to hear us
there is hope
3.
Tale: – Forgive me
Jørn Bjørn:I forgive you
Tale:– Do you?– Do you want what I want?
Tale:In /
Liv Hanne:the imperative /
Tale:I show you what I needwhat I want from you:
Jørn Bjørn:ComeGoStayDon’t stay
Tale:When I /
Liv Hanne:address someone /
Jørn Bjørn:with what feels imperative to me /
When I attack
When I reach out
language takes leave from the narrative
action turns into event –
and as the storyteller falls silent beside her camp fire, ethics stirs and tragedy shakes into action as comedy tilts its head. Tenderly mocking the girl as she starts to undress for her lover, bidding him to come closer. Bidding him to stay – and then the next morning, while she puts her hand on his, searching for something there – a confirmation maybe, a caress – he does not look at her, he does not even turn his head away. He is no longer there. He has already left – as he sips his tea, his hand dead on the table – as he gets up, as he puts on his jacket, his back all rigid, his face all closed – she realizes that what she thought meant something never meant anything. That he never meant anything by his embrace, his kisses, by being there – and then he’s gone. He does not even bother to close the door behind him, and she wants to shout, but there is no words left in her, and her voice is but a whisper when she says: – So why did you come? – Why did you kiss me? – Why did you ever say yes when you meant nothing by it?
I say yes to everything you areYou say yes to everything I amAnd then I realize your yes was a no
The shame of itIt’s thatIt’s the shame …
– Turn around– Turn around so I can look at you
4.
Orpheus walk through the underworldOrpheus walks and Eurydice followsShe is right there behind him, but he must not turn and look at her That’s the dealas long as he does not turn around and look at her
they will be fine
Liv Hanne:He walksalong razor edge cliffs. Over steep mountain passes
He crosses
marshes maybe –
Do not turn around /
Liv Hanne
He says to himself
Jørn Bjørn:Do not turn around
Short silence
Jørn Bjørn:Orpheus walks He is deep in mudAll sounds, all light is as sucked out of this landscapeIt is as steering into – nothing –
There they are
one living
and one dead – and all he can hear is the pounding of
his own heart as he keeps repeating to himself:
– She is there. I am not alone. She is there. I am not alone.As he keeps on repeating to himself– Don’t turn around. What ever you do, just do don’t turn around and look at her
Tale:And we know that he is I going to do just that
Liv Hanne:Yes
Tale:Just a moment now, and he will turn around and look at her
Yes
Tale:There
There
There he did it –
Tale:The child in her nursery
The woman on her deathbed
Orpheus in his underworld
alone
exposed
Its an outcry /
Liv HanneMummy!
Tale:a confession
an act
Jørn Bjørn og Liv Hanne: –
Tale:In the myth it never endsthe act repeats itself as the story is being told and retold
Liv Hanne: – Orpheus. Stop! – Orpheus, look at me. – Why would you not turn around and look at me? – Why don’t you answer? Don’t you love me anymore?
Tale:The imperative answered with a question
The question answered with an action
and all is lost –
And thus Eurydice
is erased from history
5.
Liv Hanne: Come
Come closer
Come over here
Jørn Bjørn:Jump!
Do it!
Do it because I ask you to!
Tale:In the address – it beginsIn the imperative – it ends.
By approaching You, I enter something I don’t yet know. It’s a
summoning. Its a revalation. It’s what I desire.
By approaching you, I leave myself vulnerable
It’s a bridging of the gap
Tale: Its an: /
Jørn Bjørn:– I see you
Tale:Its /
possible echo sequence with all
Turn around
Tale: Turn around so I can look at you
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