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A fourteen years old (Estonian) boy and a twelve year old (Hungarian) girl (the home countries can be changed to any country) spend their holiday in an International Youth Camp in Finland in winter time. Together with some other boys and girls they steal some snowmobiles to take part in an illegal race in the dark evening. The girl and the boy are together on the same toboggan. They lose their way, the snowmobile breaks down in the forest, a long way from the camp. It’s a dark and cold night. What can they do? Finding a cottage for shelter, they decide to wait there until somebody finds them and helps them to get back to the camp. Nobody comes to their rescue. There’s a big snowstorm. The boy and girl spend a number of days and nights together, eventually they run out of firewood, food and drink. They have to come to grips with the fact that they may die. The boy can’t speak Hungarian and the girl can’t speak Estonian. Both can speak English a little bit, so they have to communicate in their English, this is a difficult process. They neither understand each other very well, nor do they trust each other very much. The games and the tales help them to get to know each other better and to try and find a way to stay alive and to protect each other.
Two actors, one spotlight: the duration of the play is approximately one hour.
The purse
Tamás is 12, Anett and Berni are 9. The scene takes place today in Budapest. Several weeks pass during the scene.
One day the three of them decide together not to go to school. Tamás, who wants to become a scientist, is explaining the secrets of the spring sky to the girls, who listen to him seemingly enchanted. Actually, for the two girls, the reason they are ditching school is Tamás and not the mystery of astronomy. It is not even certain that they like the boy so much; they are rather inspired by who is going to come out on top in their battle.
Anett is from a rich family, knows the value and power of money terribly well and she doesn’t miss the opportunity to let the significantly less well-off Berni know this. But it seems she is not bothered by the lessons.
Tamás, the man of dreams, maybe notices none of this.
As Berni is not ready to act hurt and leave, Anett loses in the verbal conflict and is about to leave angrily when the children find a purse on the ground.
They find money in the purse – a lot of money, according to their notions.
The two girls outvote Tamás’ idea, that they give the wallet to a grown-up.
After short thinking they divide the sum between each other and go shopping.
Anett provokingly goes on a shopping spree, Berni is thrifty, Tamás, the dreamer spends it on expensive technical stuff. The boys appetite grows: he borrows money from – who else – Anett.
It seems Anett’s wallet never runs out of money and is always at the disposal of the other two. The way this is possible is that – first in secret, then openly – supplies the money from her own vast allowance. But she expects services in exchange for the money: first smaller, then bigger ones.
Tamás accepts the more and more humiliating tasks complacently, Berni revolts.
It is now not about the money they found, which without paying much attention they have already spent. Anett’s sources, through her very rich and unobservant father, seem inexhaustible, however, even in her case, there are more and more warning signs that maybe it will not last forever.
Slowly Tamás almost becomes a slave, Anett humiliates him baldly, almost to the degree of torture, but Berni is also in her trap. It seems that money makes all of them lose who they are.
After a completely humiliating scene in which Anett shows her worst, Berni and Tamás join forces… And to make matters worse, Anett’s father goes bankrupt and the source of money dwindles…
Here come the European Boat People
The performance is based on a kind of creative and amusing, even dramatic, turning upside down of the actual worldwide situation. It imagines that a series of factors, such as climate change and the discovery of new materials, will cause the collapse of Europe and of all the Western countries, which will be replaced by the African countries as the new economic rulers. So, rafts and crafts of all kinds change their course, bringing Italians and Europeans to search for jobs (dirty, dangerous, humiliating or whatever) in the new leading countries of the world.
The performance is about two migrants: Giorgio comes from Milan, Northern Italy, where he was previously an employee in the glittering fashion industry; Carmine comes from Southern Italy, from the Calabria Region, He has already emigrated once before. The first time, he went with all his family to Germany, the country once considered to be the engine of Europe, where he worked at the Mercedes Company. The two migrants, travelling different routes, meet on a cold Christmas night on the Southern Sicilian shores, in a remote and hidden place, whilst waiting for a raft, which will take them to the rich African shores.
The night is special, the sky is starry, the wait is long, the fears as well as the hopes are endless. Thinking about the world and life in general, they become friends, sympathetic and curious about each other’s past. Like Mary Poppins’ bag, Carmine’s suitcase contains all the ingredients of the typical Christmas Eve dinner, traditional food and also coffee, because a man coming from the South always brings along the coffee machine. Time passes among memories and reflections, fears and dreams and the ghosts of our times take off in a sad and conceited way. There is time to weave branches found on the beach, to leave a little crèche in a rock gorge and to ask Baby Jesus for a new life. Maybe the raft will arrive at midnight and maybe they will leave through the immense, unknown and dark sea. The things value has changed, the Western richness has proved not to last forever, the wheel has turned and will do so again, scoffing at humankind. During this special night there is also place for fireworks, because we, the human beings, are like this: we want to believe that one day the world will be different.
Andromedas Island
A girl and a boy are washed ashore, on an island, after a
shipwreck. They have to stay alive and find their way home. But the
boy is abducted by a woman who wears a horned mask and calls
herself Andromeda. It is her island. Ancient gods have punished
her for being vain. The Gods granted her eternal life and unearthly
beauty but put a spell on her as well. They took away her soul and
doomed her to live forever in solitude and to wear the mask. Whoever
sees her beauty is forever attracted to it. But Andromeda
herself is denied love and human feelings. Only when someone is
able to love her for whom she really is, without seeing her face,
can she be human again. Andromeda offers the children a choice:
one of them must stay, the other can go back home. They both
want to stay in order to save a friend’s life. The boy takes off
the mask, believing that the girl will leave, but she escapes and
goes on a quest to save her friend. She is willing to pay
whatever it takes to save the boy not knowing exactly why.
(In the end it turns aout that the whole quest was the dream of an
old widow in her deathbed. She dies happy, being able to experience
love and all the desires of her youth once more. Old people are
never really old, their souls stays young forever. Moments before
her death she relived her life story disguised as a romantic
adventure in which she was able to meet her dead husband once
again… and be young.)
The Hangar
A group of people have moved into an aircraft hangar following an apocalypse.
There they have developed a strict class system and rules of behaviour.
A power-game develops when Noah begins hears a voice from outside of the hangar. Everything begins to fall apart. A boy breaks in, but was he really out there to start with? What happens to human relationships when absolutely everything is ordered and regulated? What happens to language and memory? Is there space for love and tenderness?
(Written for DUS – the Norwegian version of the British “Connect” – program)
The dark cloud
(Written for DUS, the Norwegian version of the British program “Connect”)
Five children aged 12, 13, 14, 15 and16 are to have their summer holidays without their parents. Hosting the summer camp are Cinderella, Snow White, Pamela Anderson, Marilyn Monroe and the handsome handball coach. Here they are well looked after but a threatening dark cloud appears on the horizon. What does the cloud want; how can one get rid of it, and is it all just a story?