AAVA

The process of creating the staged play was an extension of my research of Artistic Collaborative Tools. I started with a work group of 5 writer/actors and assigned them to take part in the adaptation of the Novel. After we had created a shared understanding of what sections of the book we wanted to emphasise on I took the next step in creating assignments for the participants to work out and improvise around.

I admire Strindberg’s inner cosmos in what must be one of the earliest post-modern pieces of drama. I used the classic’s strong feministic voice and adapted the play to take place in present day Helsinki. I wanted to challenge the limit of how far I could take the story to feel completely contemporary without loosing the beautiful structure of themes in the original.

I wanted to work with a comedy topic and started seeing an air balloon expedition. I recalled the tragic Andrée Polar Expedition from 1897 that was lost in the Arctic for 33 years and realised that this was a magnificent topic for comedy. As Woody Allen put it ”Comedy is tragedy plus time”. This was my third research into developing Artistic Collaborative Tools. This time the work group of 4 writer/actors had to work with documentary material.