Mare

At the webpage of The Norwegian Theatre the following, among other things, is written about Mare:

"There are theories that motherly love is the original love, and that all other forms of love, including romantic love, are mutations of this. Recent research indicates that this love arises and changes the brain of anyone who gets, and takes, responsibility for a small child over time.

But what makes a person jump from a balcony, bringing one's children? Beyond the evil of the world? That dark has penetrated them? Earth is like a huge mother who is fed up with us.

Mare is a tragedy, a mystery, a popular festival in a mythological landscape. In this universe, you will meet many characters from contemporary times, history and myth. One of these is the Greek myth of Medea. Director Lisa Lie will, in collaboration with the artistic contributors and the ensemble, create a stage work in the intersection between light and dark, action and text. Springing out from myths, including ancient ones, they mix the historical and the contemporary with original theatre, stemming from Dionysian rural, ritual festivals.

The most performed tragedy of the 1900s

Medea is Euripides' best-known tragedy, and it is about the Hecate priestess, witch and half-Goddess Medea's wrath after discovering that her husband Jason has been unfaithful to her, wanting to marry another. Medea has sacrificed everything to be with Jason, a helpless leader of the Argonauts, whom she helped to victory after being poisoned by love as part of a game of Gods. She left her country and her family. There are many versions of the Medea myth, and only in the most recent ones she kills her children herself. Within evolutionary terms, it makes no sense that a mother kills her children as revenge over a former partner, the way men can do.

The mare

Mare as in nightmare, mother and sea. You wake up and think that it was only a dream that the world ended, but it was truth, touching you when you couldn't defend yourself against it. In the landscape of sleep, nobody can hear you scream. Corrected: Nobody cares that you scream. When mother has stopped caring, nothing can save you. The mare is a Norse character, who tended to sit across people's or animals' chests, riding them during their sleep, and so making them feel strangled. This condition is known all over the world, and it is called sleep paralysis. The sleeper is in a state similar to being awake, but unable to move, has trouble breathing, and often also experience hallucinations. The mare is also the origin of the expression nightmare. We can be ridden by mares, the way we can be ridden by our conscience."

The Norwegian Ibsen Award's jury gave the following reason for the award to Lisa Lie:

"Mare by Lisa Lie is a subtle and intelligent weave of references, characterised by musicality, originality and warmth. Springing out from Euripides' Medea, Lie spins forth a rich dramatic landscape in the range between classical tragedy and modern life view. The mythological, near archaic understanding of Medea is turned around, given a contemporary and intelligent perspective. The mythical is connected to our own time and age through ancient and contemporary references, and it becomes a journey into a mythical landscape, where the end stop is inside ourselves. The range between the post-dramatic structure, in which the stage design takes the place of a driving dramaturgical element, and monologues bringing the reader close to the main character, brings the drama close. As Medea says:

All we do against the defenceless. Without being able to see that it happens. Beneath our streets. Inside the houses. The missing children. Those who disappear. Those who have none to defend them. The betrayal from those who claim they defend them. And there I am. I mirror you. The darkness in you.

(Translated by Lillian Bikset for this Sceneweb entry. The original text is not translated into the English, and it sounds as follows: Alt det vi gjer mot dei forsvarslause. Utan at vi klarer å sjå at det skjer. Under gatene våre. Inne i husa. Dei sakna barna. Dei som forsvinn. Dei som ikkje har nokon til å forsvare seg. Svikta av dei som påstår forsvare dei. Og der har du meg. Eg speglar deg. Mørket i deg.)"

SOURCES:

The Norwegian Theatre, www.detnorsketeatret.no, 11.12.2018, https://www.detnorsketeatret.no/framsyningar/mare/

Import from the Scenekunst.no list of openings 11.12.2018

The municipality of Skien, skien.kommune.no, 02.04.2020, https://www.skien.kommune.no/aktuelt/ibsenprisen-2020/?fbclid=IwAR0Bc93i7Rj4u3Dm_kYlTNQ1ACQUiyPIDump6XuZt8Bmdfw-8bjF-DVj2uQ