The Question I wish I had asked

-a tribute to everything we don’t know, and the art of asking questions

The performance premiered at Studio USF in Bergen, August 2007.

Is there a question especially suitable to begin this performance with?
A question so profound and striking that it will captivate our audience immediately? Do you think it all just boils down to the presentation?
Or do you think the importance lies in the content?
Can the introduction itself change it all?
Is it possible to get a message through in a text containing merely questions?
Or do we need some answers like punctuation?

With questions both as context and content the company created a script consisting merely of questions. It evolves around the art of presenting, both in thematic and conceptual terms.

The text itself was an experiment, written in collaboration by three persons following a set of rules:
1: The text shall consist only of questions.
2: The text must work as a dramatic text to some extent.
3: The text shall contain dialogues, as natural as possible.

The distinctive character of this text adds playfulness to the performance as it is driven forward by the teasing competativeness in the dialogues. Sometimes it works as verbal duels, other times as philosophizing, and sometimes the dialogues feel natural enough for you to forget the fact that it is all questions.

Keeping with this concept NONcompany experimented with different ways of presenting. Presentation as an act on a stage, presenting as persuasion, as acts of desperation, of trying to get attention. Presentation as a trick.

All wrapped in a setting that could belong to an old-fashioned circus. Perhaps. Or a rodeo, or traveling workers living in caravans, or just us, moving from space to space.

 

Created and performed by
Lise Risom Olsen: actress and text
Leo Preston: actor and text
Håvard Pedersen: sound design and music
Lena Lundsten Buchazc: scenography/design
Hans Skogen: lighting design
Rune Salomonsen: text
Tone Myklatun: administration
Anette Pettersen and Tom Chr. Lilletvedt: poster 

Thanks to our friends for all the help.

The performance is supported by the City Council of Bergen, -department for Art and Culture,
and Fund for Performing Artists.

 

 

“Is there a question you wish you had asked? Is there a question you wish you hadn’t?  And which question would you really like to get an answer to? ”