Deranged

Music – Love – Madness
By: Maria & Jeppe Bergmann Hamming
Duration: 4 hours
Number of players: 4

 

Plagued by melancholy, madness, and mercury poisoning the aging composer Robert looks back on the series of mad events that tied his life so close together with the child prodigy Clara, the playful Felix, and the hopeful Johannes. How uncompromising musicality drove them from one extreme to the next — through the grand cities of Europe, prestigious parties, and to the verge of suicide.

Caught between reality and dreams, Robert, on his deathbed, sees the double bars — La fin in the symphony of his life — and contemplates how everything would turn out if there was time for a Da capo.

Deranged is played out through the landmark events of the composers Clara Wiecks’, Robert Schumann’s, Felix Mendelssohn’s, and Johannes Brahms’ closely interwoven lives as seen through the memories of the aging and insane Schumann. On his deathbed, he relives his life by setting the scenes and through his participation in them, lives out what actually happened and how it would have been if things had turned out differently. The scenario is a drama about the conflicts in four composers’ lives and the choices they must make between recognition, artistic integrity, love, lust, and family.

Deranged is for players who want to be engulfed by a continuous flow of scenes about love, madness, and genius, which they create together on a foundation of beautiful romantic music — the music that permeated the lives of our main characters and, therefore, also this scenario. It is structured as a piece of chamber music with a series of movements that frames the dramatic course. Music is used to cut the scenes thereby allowing an uninterrupted style of play, which will engulf and seduce you.

Player type: You want to achieve immersion through music combined with experimental dramatic effects and to explore the nature of memories and the boundaries between genius and madness. You do not need any knowledge of romantic music or the historical period.

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Bio:
Maria & Jeppe Bergmann Hamming love to use music to create drama and thinks that the 19th century is a great period. They love scenarios where something unexpected occurs in the synergy between the scenario and players. They have previously also written Sarabande for Fastaval, that was played at Stockholm Scenario Festival 2013.