Erasmus Tyrannus Rex

Erasmus Tyrannus Rex is a play by Kate Pendry. The play was written for the drama for youth platform DUS/Den Unge Scenen in 2008.

The play Erasmus Tyrannus Rex by Kate Pendry raises subjects such as abuse of power, harassment and manipulating of young people of today. What happens when a human does not dare to stand up for who he/she is, but blindly lets himself/herself be seduced by a leader, who is using the group of friends to get to power and popularity?

Kate Pendry won The Ibsen Prize AKA The Norwegian Ibsen Award 2010 for Erasmus Tyrannus Rex.

The jury gave the following reason:

"The Norwegian theatre world often has, and with good reason, sought for plays written about and for youth. With Erasmus Tyrannus Rex Kate Pendry has provided a raw and direct answer to the challenge. The scene is a school yard, the performers are pupils and the characteristics are sharp portraits of harassers and followers, victims and alpha males.

Pendry has chosen an original form, not least linguistically. Contemporary slang and jargon, abuse and obscenities, incomplete sentences and pure shit talking have been nailed, and are served with intense ongoing energy. But the whole thing is set in a strict classical frame making the lines a rhythmic, poetic stream of words. Poetic, not as in poetry or verse, but as in a - literally - 'artificial' expression. Artistic without being affected or vain.

The classical frame is obvious in the dramaturgy too. The play carries clear traces from the ancient Greek drama, with a chorus and a narrator, and groups of antagonists and protagonists, with heroes and villains, and with a fateful inevitability. The sombre background revealed in the shocking finale of the play, is the many bloody school massacres we have seen across the world.

The jury will regard Erasmus Tyrannus Rex an original contribution to Norwegian drama."

Sources:

Ibsen Awards, www.ibsenawards.com, 26.11.2013, http://www.ibsenawards.com/ia/vinnere/kate-pendry/

The Open Theatre (Det Åpne Teater), detapneteater.no, http://www.detapneteater.no/pub/daat/forestillinger/?aid=1136&cid=17&sac=all&viewall=1#daat