Conte d’amour
Extreme love transformed into exclusive and absolute possession, sublimated horror. Incandescent images distill the malaise and the fascination, portraying the unmentionable. A gut-wrenching piece.
What happens to love when it becomes exclusive and absolute possession of the other? Haunted by the figure of the Austrian Josef Fritzl, who for 24 years kept captive his own daughter and three of the seven children born of their incestuous union, Conte d’amourplunges into the murky waters of extreme love. This gut-wrenching piece distills the audience’s malaise and sordid fascination, turning the spectators into voyeurs, witnesses almost despite themselves to an intimate nightmare imbued with a disturbing strangeness as they watch ageless children, captives of a monster father who is surprisingly familiar, play and play out again disturbing rituals. Between what is shown and what is hidden, in a context out of time, incandescent words and images pulsate throughout this tale for adults.
An explorer of the unmentionable, Markus Öhrn combines the languages of video, performance art and theatre to venture into the mined territory of contemporary ideologies. By creating a fine sublimation of horror, he tears to pieces the principle of love as he relentlessly assaults the spectator’s mind. Packs a punch!
PRODUCED BY INSTITUTET +
NYA RAMPEN
WRITTEN BY ANDERS CARLSSON
DIRECTION, SET DESIGN, VIDEO AND PHOTO BY MARKUS ÖHRN
PERFORMED BY ELMER BÄCK + ANDERS CARLSSON + JAKOB ÖHRMAN + RASMUS SLÄTIS
COSTUME DESIGN PIA ALEBORG
MUSIC ANDREAS CATJAR
PHOTO ROBIN JUNICKE
WITH THE SUPPORT OF SWEDISH ARTS COUNCIL + KULTUR SKÅNE + MALMÖ CULTURE COMMITTEE + SWEDISH-FINNISH CULTURAL FOUNDATION + SWEDISH CULTURAL FOUNDATION IN FINLAND
PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF GOETHE-INSTITUT MONTRÉAL + MINISTÈRE DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES D’ALLEMAGNE + TINFO – THEATRE INFO FINLAND
MARKUS ÖHRN (MALMÖ + HELSINKI + BERLIN)
INSTITUTET + NYA RAMPEN
Collaboration in Triple Time
Invited for the first time to the FTA, Markus Öhrn is a prodigious renegade who abandoned the visual arts for the stage, adopting a hybrid approach that intertwines the artistic languages of theatre, performance art and video.
