Ferai
A Greek island or an island in the North Sea. There was once an
autocratic king who kept order in the state and family through the
fear of ruthless laws. He died. His place was taken by a just young
man who loved peace and non-violence, who wanted to free the people
from subjection to authority and to the gods, and who wanted to
abolish prisons and treat criminals as sick patients to be
rehabilitated. As in all fables, the young king wins both power and
the daughter of the dead king as his bride.
The performance begins where Kaspariana finished: with a
struggle for the possession of a knife. The young prince who takes
over shows another kind of violence: he surrenders the weapon and
fights with his bare hands, a smile upon his lips, not violent like
a ferocious dog but with a feline gentleness, harmonious,
acrobatic, dancing, and revealing implacability only at the precise
moment of the strike. He demonstrates the necessary use of violence
to install a reign of non-violence, of force to ensure a reign of
reason.
The struggle for power is no different from before. But the fact
that it now takes place in the name of absolute principles of which
no one has any concrete experience, allows for a certain nostalgia
for the ordered tyranny of the deceased autocratic king. And the
bride, the king's daughter, caught in the jaws of a double
injustice, takes the law into her own hands and commits suicide. In
vain, because that was what the young king needed. After mourning
her briefly, he tramples on her mortal remains and his people
follow him in bewilderment and awe.
Created in Holstebro, Denmark.
Actors
Ulla Alasjärvi, Marisa Gilberti, Juha Häkkänen, Sören Larsson,
Else Marie Laukvik, Iben Nagel Rasmussen, Carita Rindell, Torgeir
Wethal
Text: Peter Seeberg
Adaptation and directing: Eugenio Barba
Language: The actors speak their own different
Scandinavian languages
Number of spectators per performance: 60
220 performances from June 1969 to July
1970
On Tour
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Holland, Iceland, Italy,
Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, West Germany, Yugoslavia