Great review of “The Song of the lost Treasures”

Despite – or perhaps because of its gentle tone?

 “The Song of  the lost Treasures” goes straight to the soul. And it continues to resonate long afterwards.

Once, when I was visiting my grandparents as a child, I found a toy mouse. I played with it in a tool shed they had by the house, and I really loved that little gray mouse.Suddenly, it was gone. I looked and looked, both during that visit and later ones. But it never reappeared.

Later, even as an adult, I have occasionally dreamed that I am in that shed, and suddenly I find the mouse again! I feel just as happy in the dream every time. And just as disappointed every time I wake up.

Is it true that what is lost and what we cared about can take on an even more significant meaning by disappearing? Both things and people?

These are among the themes that New International Encounter explores in “The Song The lost Treasures,in a quietly but nonetheless powerful manner.

Retrospective

The performance isn’t entirely new; it was first staged in 2008. This fall, it is touring in DKS Akershus with new performers, small changes in the text, and a new song. In the film world, it is common to present retrospectives of well-known directors at festivals and film clubs, which can provide a captivating experience of truly getting under the skin of an artistic body of work. In the theater world – with live actors and new venues – this phenomenon is naturally harder to replicate.

As a critic, I am grateful every time I have the opportunity to experience something that gives me an overview of the history of a specific theater company and allows me to observe how themes and styles have evolved throughout their artistic journey.

NIE indeed has several of performances in their repertoire, but “The Song The lost Treasures” is the oldest of those I have had the chance to see so far. And it truly confirms the power that lies in embracing target audiences, combined with exquisite theatrical craftsmanship – something that has been NIE’s strength throughout its career. Even the smallest lost items are treated with both playfulness and great seriousness by the three performers.

The Mysterious Nature of the Everyday

On the surface, “The Song The lost Treasures “consists of small stories about things that are lost, misplaced, or disappear: “Is the thing I lost last year, in the same place as my grandfather who died before I was born? Is there a place for lost socks and stars that stop shining?” It is an engaging philosophical moment intended for people aged 6 and up.

The stories have been developed through interviews with children about what happens to things that go missing, and there is a playful element to all the episodes. Everything is presented on stage through lively music and singing, storytelling and physical theatre. Sometimes even slapstick-like performance. Even the smallest lost items are treated with both playfulness and great seriousness by the three performers, Nils Oortwijn, Anna Moberg, and Iva Moberg.

Soap bubbles are fleeting. But the three actors in “The Song The lost Treasures “ do not give up the search for what has vanished – no matter what. For example, perhaps the most common disappearance mystery of them all – single socks that never return as a pair – is brought to life through a long, detailed story: We are told about the factory workers in China making the socks, about those working on the boat transporting the socks across the sea, about the workers at the warehouse in Moss, about the delivery driver, the store employee who organizes the socks on the shelf, about your mom or dad (“in a hurry like a superhero because they are running late to pick you up from football practice or handball practice or school or after-school care or scouts or something. And they rush into the store and grab a shopping cart /…/ and throw in potatoes and carrots and bread and milk and butter, and they run through and suddenly they pass where the socks are lying. Then they think: Maybe I should grab a pair of socks?”) who quickly picks up a pair of socks for you. (Phew.) Socks that you get when you come home. And that you put on when you go out to play.

And at the end of the day, one sock is, of course, completely missing. What happened?

This is one of the ways NIE places something mundane and recognizable in a touching and artistically interesting relief. They showcase the greatness in the small. The mystery in the everyday. And they allow the mysterious to feel safe and warm.

Ephemeral, yet significant

Throughout the episodic performance, we also meet the witty character Anton Herbert von Gottenstein, the man who loses his hat, his cane, his beard, his balance, his ability to kiss (hee-hee!), the plane, the tram, his wedding ring, his pride, and his dignity. And the doll Lisa, who gets forgotten outside in the snow, and all that she experiences throughout the winter.

One episode is about a young man who goes missing. The story begins with, “There is a man who has lost a memory.” We see an old photograph of three young, cheerful people, perhaps taken in the fifties? The image is projected onto a translucent white cloth that the performers pull out from the side of the stage, stretching it out between them so that it hangs vertically, lifting it above us.

The three friends decide that they want to swim, we are told, and we follow them in a beautiful “underwater scene” where the young man falls in love with a mermaid. But gradually, the mermaid disappears. And the memory of her. And then the man disappears as well.

The poetic depiction makes me think of babies or people with dementia. They often don’t remember new experiences for long. But do not the experiences and memories have value even if they are ephemeral?

Full Control

The three performers wear soft, white clothes and move around on a floor covered in white fabric that is stretched up along two walls of the stage. Where there isn’t a white wall, the audience sits on colorful carpets. The performers continuously engage with the audience’s gaze on both sides (this is something the National Theater could learn from!). Overall, everything feels soft, friendly, and inviting.

In some reviews, I have written that I have come to the conclusion that artists in children’s performances should primarily focus on making the adults (teachers, parents, grandparents, etc.) in the audience feel secure as spectators, not the children. This is because I have often noticed that the adults are the most uncertain in encounters with performing arts, and this can have a significant impact on the children’s experience.

This is something NIE has full control over. Before the performance, actor Iva Moberg comes out into the foyer and informs us about what will happen when we enter the theater (It’s a bit dark in there, we can sit together on the carpet on the floor, anyone who needs a chair can get one, etc.). She repeats this while meeting the gaze of all of us, probably to ensure that everyone feels seen, perhaps also to gauge if anyone seems uncertain.

When we enter the auditorium, the two other performers also participate in this audience reassurance. They address all the audience members directly, but gently. They respond to comments from both children and adults and help everyone find a seat.

As a parent (and reviewer), I notice that the parameters for the audience are very clear and that the actors are tuned so sensitively to everything in the room that I can just lean back, trust the artists, and trust that the sounds and bodily reactions from the child I have with me are completely okay. I seem to notice other adults in the audience relaxing as well, participating in the experience fully alongside the children.

Transparency?

It turns out that the three figures on stage find themselves in a kind of limbo – or perhaps purgatory? – in “the space between what is and what is not.” Behind one wall is the place where all exist, and different items are constantly “born” from in the wall where all the existing things are, in various comedic ways.

Behind the wall on the other side, is where all things and people end up when they disappear. But is it impenetrable? When something ends up over there, small points of light shine through the white fabric wall high up, suggesting that what has vanished might still be cautiously accessible to us? This is reminiscent of the play “Karon’s Sandbox” at Teater Innlandet, which demonstrated how children’s play can soften the chasms between the different worlds and states associated with life and death.

The fact that the artistic team has not succumbed to making the mysterious overly grand is one of the performance’s real strengths.

Unpretentious

As in most of NIE’s performances, newly written and live-performed songs are a constant element. Here, they are performed by the artists, accompanied by guitar, clarinet, double bass, and glockenspiel. On the surface, the songs resemble those presented in much children’s entertainment, with a light cabaret feel – and with some forced rhymes:

The ball that you kicked so hard,
It flew away and traveled far,
Now it’s gone, it seems,
Where is it now, your bright, round star?

But then comes the next verse, in the same gentle tune:

If someone you love suddenly departs,
It hurts deep where sadness starts,
But even when someone goes away,
They’re always here, close to your heart.

The song performance is very unpretentious. In the occasionally complex choral pieces, the performers stumble slightly – which functions both disarming and inclusive. For instance, when the songs are about death.

The entire performance is strange yet simultaneously everyday. The fact that the artistic team has not fallen into the trap of making the mysterious overwrought is one of the true strengths of the performance.

The world is indeed full of questions, longings, and unresolved matters! Giving such things an aesthetic framework is something I generally appreciate in artistic expression; that art can help us live in and with the unresolved. If everything must be explained, forced to “add up,” or given resolution, it can often reduce one’s own place in the work.

In an exquisite manner, NIE manages through this short performance to create a strong resonance for all kinds of loss and sorrows, both hats that disappear and people you know who die. It feels like true inclusion in the work, and almost like solace.

Opening

Like the mouse that reappears in my dreams, I have, on several occasions, also encountered in dreams people I have lost throughout my life. These dreams always feel intimate and significant.

And now, as I write about this, I remember another memory. One day when my now-adult son was two years old, we collected the mail from the mailbox in the student village in Bergen where we lived. As I was about to close the flap, he suddenly exclaimed, “STOP! We need to get the mouse!” And then he stuck his little hand in and reverently fished out an invisible mouse from the mailbox. “Look, how cute!” he whispered. I nodded.

I realize now that this was probably the mouse from my grandparents’ tool shed 20 years earlier. Perhaps the wall to what is lost is not entirely sealed, after all. “Nothing is really lost. It is just in a place where you can’t see it,” it is said towards the end of The Song The lost Treasures “

Thank you for the comfort, NIE.

The children and their teachers are lucky to experience this together this autumn.

Published in Norwegian by Hedda Fredly in Periskop

The translation from Norwegian is made by AI and is for informational use.