A view from the ground
ADD_CONTENT_HERE
Square
Linda cleans at the airport. Simone is getting her sex changed. Eleonora is attending a make-up conference and her daughter Memory must carry her beauty boxes. Elly, Molly, Lily and Sally is doing time for murder, and Sally is pregnant. Finally Mira, Eva, Lea and Sara sell their house, even if it smells terrible. Sara thinks she is Evas daughter and Mira wishes she had a diary. Ma and Lucy are lovers and make a film. Spot and Endo is going to play sisters in the film which is based on a true story. Simone told Ma the story about her grandmother who got pregnant in prison. What is the truth?
The play has 4 parts: AIRPORT, PRISON; FOR SALE and FILM – In each part there are four women, and they are all connected…
The Archaeologists
Written and directed on commission for The Ibsen Theatre in Skien, 2007.
I AM HERE
(part 6 from THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS by Lene Therese Teigen)
UNN
Early morning, the light is transparent, the sun a white ball behind a veil of cloud.
The sounds – almost inaudible, but there all the same, the mutter of voices far away.
ANDREAS
Or from the sea –
BJØRN
… and birds fleeing towards the mountain –
UNN
The very plants make you think of tiny islands, ripples on the sea, blue-grey, shimmering rock formations like mussels.
CLARA
People in movement; strangely slow at a distance.
Someone asks: Am I dreaming, or is it just time passing quickly?
BJØRN
Am I dreaming, or is it just time passing quickly?
UNN
A blue bead is touched lightly and it moves again: grips the surface, lets itself move, and rolls away as if it’s never done anything else –
CLARA
Towards a little brook, almost dry, almost no water in it this year.
UNN
And I suddenly feel there are tears in me that haven’t moved for a very long time, that there are distances here in this moment that I now understand the full extent of.
BJØRN
The birds spread their wings and are lifted towards the sky –
ANDREAS
I see a boat, far away. Dark, with bent figures forcing their oars through the frothing water. It churns down crazy wave troughs and is swirled up again –
BJØRN
Snow drives obliquely to the ground, the stones sticking through are sharp;
She walks – no longer seeing the backs in front of her –
UNN
Seeing nothing anymore – just walls of snow, walls of stone
CLARA
The wind is strong, calls in front of her, or behind – she isn’t sure, should she walk quickly or slowly, hide or not hide?
It’s getting dark, getting dark –
ANDREAS
And the ice climbs in her like a white shadow. Her footsteps maintain a certain length
UNN
as she crosses the mountains –
ANDREAS
…as if she is sure that wings may be found –
UNN
… as if there is still time and no doubt –
ANDREAS
But when the night mixes with fog and the calls go quiet, she knows nothing –
BJØRN
She stops:
ANDREAS
Her own voice whispers only shards of a name
BJØRN
She feels the darkness seeping, sliding down the mountain, moist, dark, that too.
CLARA
And nothing has an end or beginning any more.
BJØRN
The skin splits,
ANDREAS
gems fall from their settings, nails loosen, disappear,
UNN
The glowing cheeks pale, the body shakes, the voice just a tiny whimper –
CLARA
Her red cape has become a grubby pelt.
ANDREAS
And it’s over –
UNN
And it’s over –
BJØRN
It is over –
CLARA
It is over –
UNN
Was to die, she knew, will no longer breathe here in this sea of fog
Here she swelled warm against his tongue,
The dark hands –
ANDREAS
And from behind the one, for a moment she glimpsed the others,
The men she had given her time to –
UNN
– those she had parted from and he she had said no to when her father suggested his name –
ANDREAS
the thread she had spun,
the water she had drunk,
CLARA
ocean sounds, water on hull, wind through grass –
UNN
and in a fragment of a second she felt the baby’s cheek on her breast;
the open mouth, the sweet warm breath
BJØRN
All this with no more than distant sorrow –
UNN
The blue bead already rolling more slowly
To settle in place, here below the mountain ridge
CLARA
Never again will the warmth of her hands
get it to glitter a dull purple
UNN
It’s getting light, light
Deep voices cut through the mist, through time
No-one will find me, she thought, once a thousand years ago
ANDREAS
Now they stand here by her bones
Feeling the steam rise, the ocean roar
BJØRN
– and one bird rises towards the sky – endlessly open and colourless
UNN
I am here, she thinks,
this is how it will be
ANDREAS
I am here
CLARA
I am here
BJØRN
I am here
CLARA
I am here
UNN
I am here –
Life Machine
written and directed by Lene Therese Teigen, House of Stories coproduced the production with Oslo Nye Teater in 2005. Supported by The Norwegian Arts Council.
Mater Nexus
Produced in Oslo 2001, in Stockholm City Theatre 2002, in Helsinki City Theatre 2003, at The Peoples Theatre in Gothenburg in 2004 and with the Theatre for You at theatre Haiu-za in Roppongi/Tokyo in 2008.
Pietà, Radio Drama 1993
a novel by Erland Kiøsterud. Teigen made it into a radio drama for NRK RADIO DRAMA DEPARTMENT in 1993. Translated and produced in Iceland and Poland.
White.Quiet. Novel 1993
A novel, Aschehoug Publishing House 1993
Reel, shortfilm 1991
With Guro Ekornholmen, Halldis Olafsdottir, Grete Nordrå, Marianne Ustvedt, Simon Andersen, Halldis Rønning, Pål Rønning and Ada Hesjevoll.
- Hjem
- Lene Therese Teigen
- Scenekunst / Performance Art
- FADO WHILE WAITING
- TIDEN UTEN BØKER / EL TIEMPO SIN LIBROS / TIME WITHOUT BOOKS/WAKTU TANPA BUKU
- LIVIA’s ROOM
- DOS DIAS EN ROMA – TO DAGER I ROMA – TWO DAYS IN ROME
- Epler som faller/ Falling apples
- Medealand
- Jeg er den eneste som har vært på månen
- ut-/ned-/opp-/be- STEMT! / eng.: VOICED
- Under Vår Himmel
- Bell Check
- Verden sett fra bakken
- Square
- Norsk Nok
- Arkeologene/The Archaeologists
- Livsmaskin/ Life Machine
- Mater Nexus
- Footfalls
- DESK – Dette skrev kvinner
- Published works
- Drama/english
- Film
- Artikler
- English