Fredrik Brattberg
THE POSITION
(Posisjonen)
1m, 2w
SYNOPSIS
When Brattberg creates his texts, he usually presents to the audience many variations of one scene, in which he slightly changes the power-hierarchical position of the characters, their mood or the meaning they give to their replicas (which then require different reactions). The story thus develops only very slowly, step by step, by adding replicas or new details; it does not proceed in a linear manner, but rather proliferates into many streams.
The initial situation in the play is the entrance of a married couple, in their late thirties, (Brattberg refers to them only as He and She) to their new house. The couple is later joined by Eva, who came to visit the man because of some credentials or grant application (Brattberg deliberately leaves many details unclear). Gradually it turns out that it was his position that enabled the man to get the new (better and nicer than the previous one) house, but that it was not without some “compromises”. The atmosphere of the text changes a couple of times: She is excited about the new place, but in another variation of the dialogue she is frightened by the change and it might even seem that she did not move entirely on her own will. In the same way, we can see the man at the peak of his powers as a decisive and confident master of the house, but also in deep depression caused also by his sexual failure, which happens despite the woman’s willingness to try out different positions (i.e. the second meaning of the title of the play).