The awareness of death has for a long time been lurking in the shadows of De Utvalgtes work, a continuing underlying context and motivating factor – a silently humming engine, driving the work forward. In Five plays of death it is given the main role, and the audience is invited into a near-life experience, conveyed through the situations and reflections of a few people who are approaching – or has already passed – the only border crossing of any significance in this world.
Five shows on death is developed from Old, a concept of Ingeborg Eliassen from 2004.
Text: De Utvalgte, the cast, Randi Rommetveit, Karl Ove Knausgård.
The play is dedicated to Kari Winge Onstad (24.02.41 – 24.03.20).
The press says:
I could have emphazised every moment in this performance. (…) But no matter what I describe, it will be a reductive exercise, for my language can not embrace in exactly what way or why these exact images are so beautiful.
-Mariken Lauvstad, scenekunst.no (follow the link for the whole review)
With the help of robots, performance and pandemics. the theatre group De Utvalgte (The chosen ones) manages to say something new about the strangest phase of life: Death. -Per Christian Selmer-Andersen, Aftenposten 8.10.2020
De Utvalgte has, like so many times before, created an unusually good space. Now, they have re-created the main stage on Black Box Theatre to an almost labyrinth-ish ghost house where I am in some ways losing sense of time and place. All the stations gives us new worlds, new life and new perspectives.
-Julie Rongved Amundsen, Klassekampen. 10.10.2020
Complete reviews:
Aftenposten: Anmeldelse av «De utvalgte»_ En vandring i den «moderne» døden (In Norwegian)
Klassekampen: Døden som drivkraft _ Klassekampen (In Norwegian)