From workshop to performance

One year ago I attended a workshop together with the playwright Isa Schöier and the actress Martyna Lisowska. The starting point was a rather loose theme about personal super powers and heroes. We began our improvising on the stage at Jönköping’s Theater. The performance that at the time was called Super-Sebbe was yet in its bud at the company TEATERi.

As often enough, I found the first steps to perform and get inside the story at best poor but more often than not my ideas felt completely inadequate. We painted, talked and tried out various scenes on the floor from a given situation. Sometimes an embarrassed laughter accompanying the rather bleak or non-creative ideas. Why this complete sense of awkwardness at the beginning of every new adventure? Luckily, to add to our adult inputs as well as getting ideas from the intended audience Schöier also met up with a couple of classes of three and five graders from a local school.

Fast forward to the 10th of February 2021 at the cultural centre of Ödlan in Jönköping. We have just finished a recording of the The book of the broken superheroes. With me on stage I now have the Belgian based actress Vanja Godée. Together with the director Rebecka Cardoso and the set designer Ylva Norlin we have managed to create a visual performance out of the playful and yet heartfelt text that Schöier has written for us.

Her words that five weeks earlier had felt so abstract is now a concrete play. Our play is set in a class room and the words feels grounded and breathes within the body. The story is filled with a psychological understanding, shaped and communicated through a physical performance. Now it is only one thing lacking but unfortunately the most vital part, an audience to receive the story. Once we are able meet you we will continue the creative journey.