The End - a gentle reminder

In the autumn program 2011 of BIT Teatergarasjen The End - a gentle reminder by Vibeke Flesland Havre is described like this:

"In our part of the world death belongs in hospitals, newspapers and TV. We don't want to see it up close, not as lines in faces nor as dead relatives. The more we distance from death, the more distant it gets and the greater the fear of it becomes. With the production The End - a gentle reminder life is put in perspective through the use of song, dance and music. This is a performance celebrating life, about being present and disappearing, and a reminder of the eternal story and who we really are.

'Hamm: Nature has forgotten us.

Clov: There's no more nature.

(Sceneweb's comment: Two lines are left out at this point.)

Hamm: But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom! Our ideas!

Clov: Then she hasn't forgotten us.'

From Endgame by Beckett.

The production combines two layers of fiction, a funeral ritual and space for memory. The main character of the piece no longer exists. He finds this hard to accept, but eventually, as the performance unfolds, he understands that not even his own apparently meaningless life was entirely without meaning.

'Every choice you make shapes the future, just like the world we live in is a result of all the choices people have made throughout history. This gives you a lot of responsibility. It also makes you a very important person.'

Vibeke Flesland Havre has a diverse background from the different producing sectors of theatre, and long experience as a freelance actress, domestically and abroad. In 2009 she invited a number of artists from Bergen's art community to a collaboration project, in which everyone had a different opinion on how we regard death in our time and age. This collaboration has resulted in the production The End - a gentle reminder.

'She said: I know what it's like to be dead. And she's making me feel like I’ve never been born.'

From She said she said by John Lennon.

'Life is understood backwards, but must be lived forwards',

Søren Kierkegaard paraphrased."

Source:

BIT Teatergarasjen, høstprogram 2011. 09.08.2011: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no/article/404