Vi tygger på tidens knokler
We chew on the bones of time
Written and directed by Jonas Corell Petersen
In cooperation with the ensemble of the National Theatre of Oslo
In the old days, people could be happy. Before the nuclear family, the state and private property. Everyone knew one another, and everyone shared everything: Bacteria, skin diseases, lice, intestinal flora and cousins. You were always a part of a community. Either everyone were sick, and died all at once, or people fought the same battle against each other to survive on scarce resources. Language was not contaminated by foreign words. There was no crime, because there were no laws. Therefore, no one made boring TV shows about it. Nobody wasted time learning to read or going to school, because there was only one book, and someone read aloud from it on Sundays. All week people looked forward to hearing news about doomsday and the torture that could be expected in hell.
Four young people meet at a seminar that lasts for 40 days.
They talk about human development over thousands of years, about the dark site of the human spirit in a cruel world – and about a glimmer of
hope?
During two hours of drama we meet people from history, near and distant, and become acquainted with the conditions they lived under. Is it really something to yearn for? Or should we rather be happy that we live here and now, despite the fact that violence, accidents and illness can strike us at any time? The director Jonas Corell Petersen is the one asking the questions. He will be one of four permanent directors at the National Theatre for the next four years. He has written this piece in collaboration with the ensemble.
Our life is a split second in history of the universe, but we are free to live a long and happy life. The only thing we know for sure is that death is waiting, and that is why we try to cram our lives with experiences. This is a paradox: The more packed our days become, the faster time seems to pass. We are chasing time, and suddenly death overtakes us.
Jonas Corell Petersen was born in Copenhagen in 1979, where he studied theatre theory and philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. He furthermore has a master’s degree in directing from the Norwegian Academy of the Arts. He has staged plays in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. Petersen won the European Fast Forward prize in 2011 for young directors. In 2013, he won the Hedda award for best performance for young audiences for the multilingual production Eg/Ik/I/Ich. At the moment, he is an in-house director at the National Theatre in Oslo, and resident playwright at the Norwegian Center for New Playwriting in 2016/2017.
We chew on the bones of time
Directed by Jonas Corell Petersen
Written by Jonas Corell Petersen & Ensemble
With Ole Johan Skjelbred, Olav Waastad, Ebsen Alknes, Sigurd Myhre
Dramaturg Olav Torbjørn Skare
Stage & costume design Nina Damerell, Thale Kvam Olsen
Music Gaute Tønder
Lights Øyvind Wangensteen
Make-up artist Wibke Schuler
In cooperation with the ensemble of the National Theatre of Oslo
Produced by the National Theatre of Oslo, Norway
In the context of the TERRORisms project of the U.T.E.
Text published by CulturBooks
freely downloadable in the Norwegian original text & in English and German translation
Premiere on the 15 January 2015
At the National Theatre of Oslo, Norway
On stage the 25 June 2015 20:00
During the TERRORisms festival in Stuttgart, Germany
Performance in Norwegian with English subtitles
Published on 10 June 2015
