Bloody Mess

At the website of Forced Entertainment the following, among other things, is written about Bloody Mess:

"A strobe light flickers, pointed at the ground. A pair of clowns in smeared make-up start an ugly fight that threatens to take over the stage.

A delinquent cheerleader dances and yells. A woman weeps in a fit of operatic grief then stops, changes costume and starts again. The strains of Deep Purple or maybe Black Sabbath blast from the PA only to be replaced by the Bach Cello Suites. A bloke starts to tell the history of the world from the Big Bang onwards but is quickly interrupted. A sound check. An interview. A seductive monologue. Rock-gig roadies creep across the stage - bringing disco lights, new speakers and a microphone that no one really wants. A woman in a gorilla suit chucks popcorn at anything that moves like a demented refugee from pantomime. A dance is performed by two men sporting only homemade tin foil stars. A beautiful silence is staged.

Forced Entertainment's Bloody Mess defies description and categorisation. Marking the culmination of their twenty years' work in theatre it is an epic for ten performers where disconnected characters, stories and performances collide. As disaster beckons and the 'show' crashes into energetic chaos Bloody Mess succeeds in interweaving its disparate elements to make a whole that is intelligent, darkly comic and unexpectedly poignant."

BIT Teatergarasjen gave the following information, among other things, about Bloody Mess:

"Even though Forced Entertainment's performing arts is easily recognised, there are no fixed rules or fixed aesthetic behind the work. They have their style, but at the same time, this is very open. Some performances contain enormous amounts of text, some no text at all. Some are energetic, chaotic and exhausting to the point of bursting, whereas others are calm, minimalist and focused on detail.

Bloody Mess is a production in the traditional format - 2 hours and 15 minutes, no interval. The performance is an epic marathon for ten performers (the ensemble's regulars, plus guests). A logic of its own arises in the meeting, or the collisions, between characters and stories not remotely related to one another. From the very beginning, when each of the performers reveals to the audience how he or she would like to be perceived throughout the evening, one can smell trouble. Rivalry, conflicts and irreconcilable differences seem to dominate fully. But while total disaster looms and 'the show' crashes into its own chaos, Bloody Mess seems to be a successful compilation of the ununiformed. The humour is dark, and it is sharp. Forced Entertainment has called the performance a manifest for the future: 'The mess this time is big, bloody and beautiful'.

Not without reason, Forced Entertainment has been characterised as its generation's most brilliant theatre company, and it is among Europe's most sought-for as such. The unique ability and courage to test the limits in performing arts have made the company loved by audiences and admired by artistic colleagues for no other or simpler reason than that it is excellent. Forced Entertainment takes use of the simplest material, the most basic stories with the weirdest details, and build magic stories."

SOURCES:

BIT Teatergarasjen, autumn program 2004. 22.11.2010: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no -arkiv

Forced Entertainment, forcedentertainment.com, 11.03.2014, http://forcedentertainment.com/page/144/Bloody-Mess/85

Jørgen Alnæs, Dagsavisen September 25 2004:

"Through the individual projects wrestling one another, an absurdity and a chaos arise, and eventually it seems coherent. In common of all the performers onstage and a running theme in Bloody Mess is the lack of will to look beyond oneself and the lack of dialogue or cooperation. The result is two at times rather wearisome, but funny, sombre and thought-provoking hours."