A bouquet of warm, personal and humorous stories about travel and identity, written by eight different authors
Man has always been migrating, but never to the extent as it happens today. The story of man in transit has become the major and most important issue of our times – for good or bad. Now Hålogaland Teater – The Arctic Theatre brings these stories to our black box stage, lending voice to eight authors from all over the world.
In China a person is riding a taxi on the way to the airport, deep in a South-African jungle a captured hostage is on an unsafe journey awaiting to be sold to the terrorist group Boko Haram. In New York City, a young Chinese girl is waiting for her parents to come to town to buy an apartment, and in Norway, a woman is waiting for a man to help her moving. In a café in Rome, the young fascist is talking about how he wants to change the world and the people and draw them in his direction. In a different place, the young girl is keeping her family at a distance with little lies to prevent them from visiting her. Meanwhile, in a very different setting, a man is prepared for travel and meeting the big unknown world, the world with no specific location.
In “The Monkeys of the Himalayas” director Jon Tombre creates a wide and playful universe tying a number of threads together. At the same time set designer, Yngvar Julin constructs a room in which the characters are in transit, to or from – back and forth. In addition, five Norwegian and three Chinese actors come along on this journey. Before writing the texts for this production, the authors from China, Tatarstan, Norway, Italy, The Netherlands, South-Africa and the USA were in dialogue with researchers. This was followed up by several workshops in China where the texts were merged and finally became the stories we are about to hear.
So, tag along on an adventurous voyage to all corners of the world, where some will be different and unknown, while a great part will be familiar and easy to recognise.
The performance will be subtitled