18 May Brilliantly dark

Expressen
Published on 8th December 2014 at 08:04
Isa Andersson

One can make a long list of Austrians who dug into the human dirty laundry, both psychological and real. Michael Haneke, Elfriede Jelinek and Ulrich Seidl have become black sheep of the nation due to their depiction of the perverted, dark side of humans. Their fellow countryman Ferdinand Bruckner, a Freud’s contemporary, wrote “Pains of Youth” under an assumed name because of the controversial subject of the play. In this production of the Backa Theatre, adapted by Stefan Åkesson and brilliantly directed by Anja Suša, the play is as upsetting as almost 90 years before.
Life conditions have changed for the main characters in this play, who are a group of medical students desperately searching for the meaning of their lives. But much stays the same. Bruckner’s post-war Vienna at the threshold of the Second World War has been replaced by a modern, fast consumer society, where everything but happiness is accelerating. With the future and history on its shoulders, young people are on a journey to fulfil themselves, but for whom and what for?

Like animals in a cage, they are pacing around – at the same time they are their own prisoners and prison guards. In a half-finished house cluttered with moving boxes, they are drowning their anxiety in alcohol, sex and power games – and the cast’s performance is extraordinary.
A drunk Carl (Rasmus Lindberg) amuses himself by training Niko (Ramtin Parvaneh), an assistant, while a destructive Dessi (Emelie Strömberg) dreams herself back into her childhood, and a model-student Marie’s (Mia Ray) illusions are shattered by the unfaithful Bambi (Jonatan Rodriguez).
Add a number of crooning songs that result in an anxious cry and a Fritzl-inspired woman in a box and – Voila! – you have some of the ingredients for the darkest and most important youth production this winter, a production that takes the questions about human values, collective and individual responsibilities and loneliness to the extreme.

Four musicians in brown suits accompany the play with hard electronic music. Are they movers? Reminders of Europe’s Nazi past? Or the fascism of our own times? Regardless of that, this performance challenges us to come to terms with our own dirty laundry.