We're back in Sweden today with another Nobel Prize winner. The play is a long one act by Par Lagerkvist. (Par should have an umlaut over the "a" but I can't figure out how to change the keyboard.) I is called The Hangman. It is a weird one and it too reminds me of Ingmar Bergman.
The play is a little crazy. It begins in a Medieval tavern. Several tradesmen are sitting about drinking ale and telling stories most of which concern the hangman, who is sitting in the tavern by himself seemingly ignoring them. Some of their stories are acted out for us by a "tableau" which appears up left. The use of the word tableau is odd because that usually refers to a frozen stage picture but in this context it refers to a different playing area where flashbacks happen. After a bunch stories of discussion about the power of evil and the hangman, a character called Gallows-Lasse comes in. He is maimed having had both his hand's and forearms cut off as punishment for theft. He ends the tavern scene by telling in grotesque detail how he managed to get the mandrake root which protects him and gives him the power to live with evil.
After this scene we are transported to a 1930's nightclub with a negro jazz band. The hangman is still there.joined by a woman who is glowing beatifically. The play was written in 1933 so there is much discussion of a master race in the club. There are a lot of conversations by different people at the nightclub about death and killing. There's a lot of pro-war talk. Soon the Negro band is caught eating their dinner and the crowd offended by this attacks and kills some of them before forcing them to play again, which they do jarringly and violently causing orgiastic dancing among the guests. .
Finally one member of those assembled toasts the Hangman who speaks for the first time. He launches into a five page monologue wishing that he could die and be free of all the death that he has been and continues be responsible for. We are treated to a flashback of the hangman talking to Jesus. The play ends with the hangman being given succor and hope by the beatific woman.
Whoa. Clearly the play is informed by growing Nazi sentiment and it links it too the barbarism and superstition of Medieval times. It would be very hard to stage especially the melee that erupts. It's a dense metaphysical play about death. There's a bit too much story telling at the beginning. It's heavy man.
The play is a little crazy. It begins in a Medieval tavern. Several tradesmen are sitting about drinking ale and telling stories most of which concern the hangman, who is sitting in the tavern by himself seemingly ignoring them. Some of their stories are acted out for us by a "tableau" which appears up left. The use of the word tableau is odd because that usually refers to a frozen stage picture but in this context it refers to a different playing area where flashbacks happen. After a bunch stories of discussion about the power of evil and the hangman, a character called Gallows-Lasse comes in. He is maimed having had both his hand's and forearms cut off as punishment for theft. He ends the tavern scene by telling in grotesque detail how he managed to get the mandrake root which protects him and gives him the power to live with evil.
After this scene we are transported to a 1930's nightclub with a negro jazz band. The hangman is still there.joined by a woman who is glowing beatifically. The play was written in 1933 so there is much discussion of a master race in the club. There are a lot of conversations by different people at the nightclub about death and killing. There's a lot of pro-war talk. Soon the Negro band is caught eating their dinner and the crowd offended by this attacks and kills some of them before forcing them to play again, which they do jarringly and violently causing orgiastic dancing among the guests. .
Finally one member of those assembled toasts the Hangman who speaks for the first time. He launches into a five page monologue wishing that he could die and be free of all the death that he has been and continues be responsible for. We are treated to a flashback of the hangman talking to Jesus. The play ends with the hangman being given succor and hope by the beatific woman.
Whoa. Clearly the play is informed by growing Nazi sentiment and it links it too the barbarism and superstition of Medieval times. It would be very hard to stage especially the melee that erupts. It's a dense metaphysical play about death. There's a bit too much story telling at the beginning. It's heavy man.
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