Allegorie des Glücks

Thursday 30. January, 20.00 h
Allegorie des Glücks
at Theater Neumarkt, Zürich

A Black Metal exercitation about family
By Markus Öhrn
A co-production with Nya Rampen

Happiness has become the Holy Grail of our society. It’s the gratuity for success, the answer to all of life’s problems, like the default ending of fairytales: “… and they lived happily ever after.” An ubiquitous image of happiness is fed to us as being within reach. It appears to be right there, all we need to do is seize it. We have no other option but to aspire to it. We are fully aware that our longing is commodified, commercialized, utilized, and still, we don’t seem to have a choice. To justify our existence, we are damned to pursue success. Success is redemptive, failure is hell.

Markus Öhrn’s work explores the compulsive character of our constant feeling of not having done enough to pursue our own happiness. He creates a performance that focuses on the repetitive, idle moments in the everyday life of a typical European family, which today, as before, is still considered the nucleus of our society. The mundane, repetitive patterns and rituals that conceal inherent chasms become the stuff of an artistic research that scratches at the shiny surface of our accepted models, and bores through to the gloominess that lies beneath. A key element of the play is the operatic Black-Metal performed live by a guitarist and analogue synthesizers, which sets the play’s atmosphere.

Director/Concept/Video: Markus Öhrn
Music: Janne Lounatvuori
Space design: Dominic Huber
Costume design: Pia Aleborg
Costume assistant: Sabina Winkler
Dramaturgy: Ralf Fiedler, Fadrina Arpagaus

WITH:

Janne Lounatvuori, Jakob Öhrman, Linus Öhrn, Markus Öhrn, Janet Rothe, Rasmus Slätis