LAUGHTER IN THE DARK
The Mind Deceives
2014
Using Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Laughter in the Dark as it’s starting point, the performance is a classic tale of desire, lust, misfortune and deception. The man Albinus leaves his wife and child for a young lover, Margot. The man’s new friend, Rex, is her ex-boyfriend. A love triangle has begun. Albinus loses his sight in a car crash and is subjected to betrayal and deception until the fatal shot is heard.
The choice of a simple well-written tale with a classic plot lets us develop the visual and audio means and turn them into active co-players.
The performance is divided into three acts.
1. Dark. We begin far into the story. Albinus is blinded. Voices and sounds move all the way into the audience’s bodies via binaural microphones and headphones. Into our inner space.
2. Light and shadow. The space is seen as an inevitable machine in constant movement. It pushes the characters in certain directions where they can disappear and appear again in new situations. The story is told here from start to finish. The choreography makes use of the space’s elements and balances between the machine’s movements, the characters’ personalities and the tale’s sequence of events. The costumes and shoes are at the same time recognizable and necessarily alienating. The characters become a part of the space.
3. Music. The tale is over, but the music continues. It shakes off the story and takes us into a pounding rhythmic chamber of tones, hammer strokes, volume, chords and melodic beauty. The music ruptures the fated tale and opens up to new spaces.
All speaks to the mind and the senses.
Duration 90 min. no intermission