Bo I. Cavefors
DIE TOTENINSEL / THE ISLAND OF DEATH
Translation from Swedish by Martin Bladh
Illustrations: Martin Bladh
Stage: Arnold Böcklin’s painting Die Toteninsel (the earliest version, 1880). The painting is projected on a white screen covering the whole backdrop of the stage.
In front of the painting, a figure clad in white with its back turned towards the audience. It’s wearing a thin white cloth which doesn’t cover the front of the body. The audience can’t see that the figure is naked under the cloth and if it’s a man or a woman until the end of the performance. The voice shouldn’t tell if it’s a man or a woman who’s delivering the text. Alternative 1: a naked man with an androgynous appearance; alternative 2: a naked woman with a boyish appearance. If alternative 2 is chosen some minor changes most be done in the text.
During the whole performance the stage floor is covered by naked men and women copulating, caressing, male on male, female on female - now and then these actors will make themselves heard through kisses, moans and sighs - sensual pleasure, cries of pain. The bodies are enclosed in a blue-black-light which gives the impression of water and the ocean. Choreography - the bodies move like waves.
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Sappho, when you died
Everything that was you
Perished.
You were
Dead dead dead.
You are
Death.
Why lie:
Wie froh bin ich,
Das ich weg bin! 1a)
What is a human heart? 1b)
All ends, finally…
No memories
No yearnings…
Left
Off your moist
Cunt
The red lips,
That rose like vampires
Over there on the island
With the impenetrable
Forest of
Black coniferous trees.
But what happens in the shadow
Of the trees?
What I remember is
You as nun,
As frying-pan
And with Greasy frog legs. 2)
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