Teatermaskinen, Logosfält

Review in Issue 18-1 | Spring 2006

In the final episode of Swedish company Teatermaskinen's Logosfalt, a patient strains under the curative therapy of a doctor. He is coached to get his mouth around the language of the institution. It is a slow and painful remediation as he tirelessly contorts breath, sounds and impulse into the prescribed code of language. As the words are eventually pushed through the victory seems senseless and defeating.

The struggle of the outsider reeling dangerously on the edge of an impenetrable and unattainable field, outside the door without the code for entry, drives Logosfalt's exploration. The main episode, a man in the last hours of a life he has chosen to end, is a viscous cacophony of stories streaming and swirling through the auditorium. Propelled by a distinctly detached rhythm and humour, his journey is at times an overwhelming torrent. Engulfed along with the performer, the audience is also compelled to slip in and out of his account. This process, this journey shared, at times seems purposefully abstract and elusive, particularly when peppered by beautifully meditative video. At the same time, the stark presence of the body and its clawing at coherence is concrete, violent and challenging. Considering the final episode as an entry code into the Logosfalt's world might be the necessary invitation for us to drift together even further on the edge of understanding.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Venue
Date Seen
  1. Oct 2005

This article in the magazine

Issue 18-1
p. 29