A Wee One

A Wee One has been awarded two international awards, both in 2003. The performance won the audience and jury award during International Festival of Monodrama and Pantomime in Belgrade and an award for the most unique and original performance during the Theatrical-Sky PUF festival in Croatia.

A Wee One is based on Eilertsen’s own experiences growing up, and we follow his way thought various phases of life at a high pace. He takes us on a trip into a fast changing world. He tells his story simply and directly, using clowning, juggling and music. In addition to being an actor, Eilertsen is an accomplished musician, playing instruments and integrating them in tough physical numbers.

In A Wee One we follow the wee one through life, in which he in quick leaps keeps burning for new contexts. He is a politician, he meets love, he leaves little Norway to travel the world, he becomes a philosopher, religious, alcoholic, loses his wit, before he disappears into poetry at the end. The wee one has a violent appetite for life, but none of his passions lasts. Driven by the hope there must be something more, he keeps leaving the contexts he has become part of to hunt for new challenges. At every departure he leaves behind who he has been thus far. Nothing is good enough, nothing is valuable enough or meaningful enough to last. There must be something more? He only has himself, and Solveig definitely didn’t wait, the way she waited for Peer 150 years ago. The wee one needs to learn to live in the world he is part of, to learn to see the beauty in the cycle of defeat and the poetry in eternal repetition.

To begin with, the performance was partially based on text, and Eilertsen played the accordion and mandolin. In version two most of the text was cut, and the guitar and the bass are included among the instruments, but the content is mainly the same in the second version as in the first.

A Wee One has a loose structure, so that Eilertsen can easily move it between diverse surroundings. Nor is the action all set, providing room to improvise and to use the ideas and input he gets during the performance. In a way, A Wee One has become a playpen for Eilertsen, a context in which he can allow himself more than he usually can onstage, in the term of trying out concepts and methods of communication.

A Wee One is based on Eilertsen's own experiences growing up, and we follow his way thought various phases of life at a high pace. He takes us on a trip into a fast changing world. He tells his story simply and directly, using clowning, juggling and music. Eilertsen is an accomplished musician, playing instruments and integrating them in tough physical numbers.

Sources:

E-mail from Thorbjørn Gabrielsen, November 10 2010

Eilertsen & Granados Teaterkompani, http://eilertsen-granados.com/no, 11.10.2010, http://eilertsen-granados.com/no/en-ensom-sneip-a-wee-one/

http://www.eilertsen-granados.no/Norsk/Innhold.php?Page=Sneip&Submenu=1 12.09.2010

Ola By Rise, 03.05.1997, Adresseavisa [Trondheim]:
"Check out this wee one, people! When the performance is over, we sit back breathless after watching a combination of mimicry, musicality and comedy at an extremely high level"

Skribent ukjent, 20.07.1996, Göteborgsposten [Gøteborg]:
"With complete control over his long, sinewy body, he leads the mind to John Cleese as well as the rubber man."