Details

‘I am so heavy that I want to be the wind.’

Death, its anxiety and temptation, told by a human in absolute solitude

About performance

Written by Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse in 2011, the play delivers the themes of ‘eternal solitude’ and ‘unfathomable life’ most acutely, giving a dream-like portrayal of anxiety and desire about death. The dialogue between two characters floating on the sea reveals Fosse’s linguistic characteristics such as silence, repetition, pause, and hesitation, which leads to an understanding of the characters’ inner life not revealed on the surface.

A new production by Yurangseon for 2017, I am the wind ingrains the language of Fosse on the minimalistic stage. On the dream-like sea, we hear the resonance of two people’s words, which gradually expands as if it merges with the sea. Seon-ho Song’s direction which aims at ‘creating a time and space for reflection’ approaches, with minimal theatrical tools, the unrealistic world of Fosse, focusing on materializing the language. Through the performance, the intimate conversation of the two characters about death is shifted to live music about death.

Seon-ho Song, who first introduced Jon Fosse to Korea, presents his latest play in about 10 years after Autumn Dream. The essence of the work, a more profound integration of his ideas, is achieved in a visually and aurally vivid way.

Yurangseon, based on their outcome and experience of combining a new language of play-writing and video, aims to offer a new type of experience to the Korean theatre scene and audience, by experimenting the style of minimalism and expression of musical language.

Synopsis

There are two men on a small boat. One man says that he has already left with the wind and is not here anymore. The boat sets sail, and the two men start to engage in a conversation about death. As the waves get rougher and fog thicker, one man jumps into the sea. Two men, standing on the boat. The dead man says: “I’ve left,” “I am the wind.” When asked why he has left, he answers it was because he was too heavy.

Director’s notes

‘A fleeting dream’

The One, The Other. In an isolated place, two characters engage in a secretive conversation, continuously creating illusions. Coming out of unidentified anxiety and desire, these illusions coexist with reality; it is a world where the present overlaps with the past and future, and where death is inseparably a part of life.

The illusions they experience is similar to a short dream that we have – a fleeting dream that is so intense yet never escapable. The 70-minute dream, which will approach us as a spiritual mystery and ultimately lead us to ontological reflection, is materialized by pictorial images that leave a strong mark to our eyes and ears, and by poetic live music.

“The moment when an angel walks across the stage” – this is the essence of theatre to Fosse. In a way, the attempt to materialize the fleeting dream is not irrelevant to the approach to such essence.

Writer

Jon Fosse

Considered to be Norway’s best playwright since Ibsen, Jon Fosse was born in 1959 in Haugesund. He grew up in Haugesund and moved to Bergen in 1975, where he studied comparative literature. After his debut with novel Red, Black in 1983, he expanded his boundary to poetry, children’s literature and plays. With Someone Is Going To Come performed at Theatre des Amandiers in 1996 and The Name at Schaubühne in 2000, Fosse became one of the writers who receive the biggest attention in Europe. Portraying the world of ontological contemplation through calm yet musical language of Nynorsk, he has written many plays including Autumn Dream, The Girl On The Sofa, Warm, I Am The Wind and These Eyes. His plays have been translated into more than 40 languages around the world. He is the winner of Nynorsk Literature Award(1998), Ibsen Award(2010), European Prize for Literature(2014), Nordic Council Literature Award(2015) and one of the most mentioned candidates for Nobel Prize nominees.

Credit

Writer / Jon Fosse

Director / Sun-ho Song

Translator·Dramaturg / Jai-ung Hong

Stage Design / Eun-kyu Lee

Lighting Design / Ho Shin

Video Design / Jae-min Kim

Costume / Ji-yeon Kim

Make up / Ji-young Baek

Cast / Keun-hong Park, Seon-woo Cheon

Company

Yurangseon

Established in 2008 under the motto of ‘the soul’s waterway towards light – the implementation of a genuinely inquiring spirit,’ Yurangseon has thrown fundamental questions on the significance of theatre as an art form in contemporary society. Keeping in mind the challenge to ‘draw out a form of performance that can concretely express the life and truth of individuals in society,’ Yuranseon has staged Korean original works such as You Don’t Understand and Post Geomgunjeon, and compelling international works that challenge us, including Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Invasion and Erling Jepsen’s The Man Who Asked Permission to Stay on Earth. Recently, they are focusing on new plays that clearly expose the problems of human existence.