Eternity lasts longest

In Passage Nord's catalogue the following is written about Eternity lasts longest:

"A performance featuring twenty-eight scenes in all, sixteen which are texts by the German Dada artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), among them the one-act Shadow Play, the poem To Anna Blume and Ursonata. The remaining twelve are pure performance or dance numbers. It is about Anna who is the same from the front as from the back. About the man who has lost his shadow and the woman who has fallen in love with it.

'All my works are pillars carrying the cathedral of erotic misery.'

A big, naked man lies absolutely still on a metal shelf, after forty minutes he cries out: 'Mummy, mummy, there's a man standing there', and the text The Wire Spring of Franz Muller starts up, explaining why the man is just standing.

Humour is used as if it was something dangerous. The performance is full of longing and melancholy and circles around loneliness and love. The meaningless of life is laughed at. The recognition of this is obvious but completely warped. All the objects that are used are lying in metal shelves, all are ready-mades in the spirit of Schwitters. A distortion of basic situations is created, and it leads to uneasiness.

The humour is a great relief, as in Arabian dance with garden shears around the waist and neck, or an ur-sonata where the actors build card houses with large, brown pieces of cardboard. There is mime to Portuguese fishing songs and jazz dance to German industrial noise rock."

Excerpt from the script:

"When someone is unlined, he must repeatedly realise that the world is lined. Like a zebra the world is separated into lines, and yet has just a single coat. The world is written along this lines; this is what differentiates it from the zebra, which is usually only rarely written upon. The reason for this, however, is that it is hard to write on a coat of fur. So the poor zebra runs about in the world like a blank sheet of paper, in contrast to him, the world is written upon from right to left.

Lanke trr gll
pe pe pe pe pe
ooka ooka ooka ooka

Lanke trr gll
Rrmmp
Rrnnf

Lanke trr gll
Ziiuu lenn trll?
Lumpff tumpff trll

Lanke trr gll
Rrumpff tilff too

Lanke trr gll
Ziiuu lenn trll?
Lumpff tumpff trll"

Sources:

Buresund, Inger and Anne-Britt Gran (1996): Frie grupper og Black Box Teater. 1970-1995 (literally: Independent companies and Black Box Teater. 1970-1995), adNotam Gyldendal, Oslo

Galleri Svae, www.svae.as, 25.11.2011, http://svae.as/article/articleview/345

Catalogue, PASSAGE NORD 1986-1996. Kjetil Skøien, performance, installation. Donated by: Kjetil Skøien, May 2010. Translation: Ruth Waaler.

Kunst1, kunst1.no, 31.01.2013, http://www.kunst1.no/default.pl?showArticle=116&pageId=167

Nerland, Marie (ed.), Birkeland, Sven Åge (ed.), Ferdskriveren, risiko, 2003, BIT Teatergarasjen

Writer and date unknown, Klassekampen [Oslo]:
"Passage Nord at its best [...] It has become a very successful performance. Seven performers who can talk, dance and act as well, make a wholehearted, not to say twisted, effort honouring Schwitters and performance as an artistic expression."

Writer and date unknown, Aftenposten [Oslo]:
"Kjetil Skøien has employed great imagination in giving the different acts identity. The variations keep the audience busy until he slows down and freezes the conclusion. [...] In a world where reality seems worse than a nightmare, it can be lovely to relax with some absurd imagination in which humour is a weapon."

Writer and date unknown, Dagbladet [Oslo]:
"Funny multi-art. Striking in its visual use of imagination. The scenes have direct and suggestive powers."

Writer and date unknown, Bergensavisen [Bergen]:
"Among the best performed in Teatergarasjen. High-paced, strength, vitality, aggression, feminine lusciousness. Theatre with all ingredients."