Jon Fosse
Fosse: Plays Six
FOREWORD BY BERIT GULLBERG. TRANSLATED BY MAY-BRIT AKERHOLT
Twenty years ago, Jon Fosse was known as a poet and essayist in some well-read circles; his future success as a dramatist was at its very beginning. Maybe one could call him the reluctant playwright at the start of this period. His plays were being produced in Norway, although with a certain caution, later to move across the borders to insightful and quality-hungry theatres, most of them small, with underground status.
Directors were fascinated by the musical, stringent minimalism and the profundity yet apparent simpleness of his stories.
The Swedish author and critic Leif Zern, who has followed Fosse’s career from the beginning, should, eventually, write The Luminous Darkness, an enlightening book about Fosse which highlights the mysticism of the author’s steadily growing body of work. As the years have passed, agents, directors, translators and other fiery spirits have transferred the flaming torch between theatres in various countries.
From having been a modestly recognised author, Jon Fosse now has a weighty and luminous name as a dramatist across continents. Only India and Africa are left. His more than forty plays are translated to all the European languages as well as to Farsi, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Russian. We know of at least 900 productions, and I believe that an unspecified number of performances take place without our knowledge and without payment of any copyright. At the beginning of the 2000s, a tsunami of Fosse plays premiered in Germany as well as France, where the wave is still rolling on. The great French director Claude Régy put Fosse on the world map with his outstanding and sensational production of Someone Is Going to Come in 1999 at Théâtre Nanterre in Paris. After that, a long line of Europe’s leading directors continued to stage a series of Jon Fosse’s plays. It was almost like a race. The first English production, The Child, took place at the Gate Theatre in London in 1998, directed by Ramin Gray. The performance was met with mild and courteous interest. A few productions followed, among them Nightsongs directed by Katie Mitchell in David Harrower’s translation at the Royal Court, but that was a less successful event. It proved difficult to mount another attempt with any great success. Several other translators tried their talents on Fosse’s texts, among them Geoffrey Mutton and Ann Henning, and in USA, Sara Cameron Sunde. But the truly great artistic break-through in UK would not happen until May 2011, when Fosse finally managed to bring English critics as well as audiences enthusiastically into his world. I am referring to the recently tragically deceased French director Patrice Chéreau’s illuminating, vibrant staging of I Am the Wind at the Young Vic in London, in Simon Stephens’ version. It muted all resistance in England. Simon Stephens and Patrice Chéreau travelled to Jon Fosse in Bergen before the rehearsals. Simon told me later: ‘It was a special night. One of the most beautiful nights in my working life. It felt like a special honour to spend the evening with these two towers of European theatre.’
Welcome to Fosse’s illuminating darkness!
RAMBUKU
Characters
SHE
HE
RAMBUKU
Rambuku premiered at Det Norske Teatret –
The Norwegian Theatre — 2 February 2006.
Director: Kai Johnsen
Designer: Kari Gravklev
Cast:
She: Ragnhild Hilt
He: Svein Erik Brodal
Rambuku: Morten Espeland
A living-room
An elderly woman in an overcoat and with a small bag over her shoulder
An elderly man in an overcoat
SHE
So
yes
yes here we are
quite short pause
and how often haven’t we been
standing here
quite short pause
like this
quite short pause
it is as if
we have always been here
quite short pause
just been here
quite short pause
year in and year out
have you and I
been here
quite short pause
always
short pause
and you don’t say anything
Why don’t you say something
quite short pause
can’t you say something
quite short pause
don’t just stand there
please
quite short pause
you just stand there
quite short pause
and look and look
yes
quite short pause
but don’t do it
don’t just stand there
and look and look
can’t you do something
quite short pause
say something
short pause
why don’t you say something
surely you can say something
talk to me
can’t you
quite short pause
you can
can’t you
quite short pause
say something then
short pause
oh well
just stand there
then
just stand there
quite short pause
yes
yes why don’t you
quite short pause
but it can’t just be
like this
quite short pause
no
no that’s not possible
Quite short pause
And why won’t you say anything
Long pause
But do you know
quite long pause
yes
yes that today’s the day
when you and I
are going to Rambuku
you know that
laughs briefly to herself
we’re going
all the way to Rambuku
quite short pause
you know that
don’t you
quite short pause
you know that
right
short pause
but why can’t you answer
say something
say
yes say if you know it
say if you know that today you and I
are going to Rambuku
quite short pause
but you don’t answer
don’t say anything
quite short pause
no matter what I say
you don’t answer
but it’s true
that today you and I are going
to Rambuku
quite short pause
for you know that far away somewhere
there is Rambuku
quite short pause
and there we shall live
there you and I
shall live now
Short pause
Yes we shall
Quite short pause
You and I
shall live there
quite short pause
yes
quite short pause
and do you know
what it’s like in Rambuku
no
I don’t suppose you do
short pause
in Rambuku there are angels
and trees
trees that are