Oslo, Norway. The Goetheanum’s Theater Festival will take place from 10 to 14 July. The Norwegian language designer Martin Goldberg will perform his play, “Dialogue 999” there, with Kristin Ledsaak. An interview.
What is the performance about?
It’s about our inner existence and one of the thousands of dialogues we have with each other in life—it’s about the 999th dialogue. So Ethel and Spiros are talking to each other, both having trained in a spiritual center. Spiros remains faithful to the cause (which one is that?), while Ethel has gained a lot of experience at various cultural institutions. Both negotiate the interplay between speech and movement.
What themes do you explore in your work?
One always wakes up, but sometimes it is in a state of questioning restlessness. You listen to it, this restlessness; you experience it until you have finished experiencing it. I realized that I wanted to convey something specific—through conversations. My friend and I went for walks together for hours and talked about many topics over several weeks: speech and drama, shaping language and gestures, coming into play with others, visualizing characters, building a role character, being real, about the relationship between language and drama, about the relationship between the role and the self. So we talked. Did we play? Yes, too—and we communicated in different languages, some that we knew well and others that we knew less well. Dialogue after dialogue emerged.
What influence did Rudolf Steiner’s Drama Course have on your work?
Rudolf Steiner’s Drama Course, our studies at the Goetheanum in Dornach, and our forty to forty-five years of experience as speech formation artists are the basis for our short performance. We attach particular importance to an open ending to the play.
More Goetheanum Theater-Festtage
Translation Charles Cross
Image Kristin Ledsaak and Martin Goldberg, Photo: Magnus Skrede
