I Am the Wind (review)

Despite being hailed by some as the Beckett of the twenty-first century, as well as one of Europe's most distinguished and most performed playwrights for the past two decades, Jon Fosse has only recently received such admiration in the Anglo-American theatre. I Am the Wind (Eg er vinden, 2007) is a meditation on depression, suicide, identity, and loss that probes the interior reaches of our depressive society. This highly anticipated co-production of the Young Vic and the Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, featured one of contemporary British theatre's most important writers, Simon Stephens (providing an English-language version of Fosse's terse Norwegian Nynorsk), and one of France's most celebrated directors, Patrice Chéreau, notably creating his first production in English. In this production, Chéreau's directorial approach to Fosse was quite different from that of his compatriot Claude Régy's, whose admired productions of Quelqu'un va venir (1999) and Variations sur la mort (2003) were celebrated for their hypnotic manipulation of audience perception. With I Am the Wind, Chéreau emphasized desire rather than perception, clarity rather than obscurity, presenting Fosse so that his English-speaking audience could appreciate the author at his most lyrical, and also be astonished at arresting moments of theatrical awareness.

I Am the Wind had a strong tonal affinity to Chéreau's cinematic adaptation of Phillipe Besson's novel Son Frère (2003), whose two central characters are also negotiating their emotional solitude where the land disappears into the sea. The sea provides an unceasing "silent" force in Chéreau's film and likewise is a central motif in several of Fosse's plays. Rivaling that of even Synge and O'Neill, Fosse's sea became the scenic and psychological core of this drama of negotiated self-abnegation. The play presented an extended exchange between two men (or perhaps it was just one man conversing with his own Other) about the ideation and act of suicide. Shifting seamlessly from aftermath to action and back again, the play related the story of The One's loss at sea, deconstructing his emotional state before presenting the flashback voyage of a relationship (or identity) adrift: "I didn't want to / I just did it / You just did it / I just did it," the play begins. The "it"—The One's apparent suicide—is the central action and question of this lyrical drama, and Chéreau's production, particularly in its acting and scenography, highlighted both the extreme intimacy and extreme discomfort of considering such an act.

Jack Laskey (The Other) and Tom Brooke (The One) in I Am the Wind. (Photo: Simon Annand.)

Even before the first words were spoken, the production provided an affecting tableau. Two men—one shirtless, barefooted, and noticeably more pale and frail (as if drowned)—appeared on a desolate shore, embarkation and aftermath of the desperate voyage. The Other (Jack Laskey) stood cradling The One (a haunting Tom Brooke) in his arms, the two sustaining a breathless pietà, seemingly to the limit of the actors' physical endurance. From the outset, the audience was both riveted by the striking intimacy of the image and discomfited by its physical exertion. Unlike the perceptual disorientation encouraged by Régy's seminal productions of Fosse, Chéreau clearly suspended his audience between desire (empathy) and theatrical awareness (distance).

Jack Laskey (The Other) in I Am the Wind. (Photo: Simon Annand.)

But were these figures friends? Lovers? The audience could never really know, because the play itself confounds character and relationship and seemingly eschews any cultural supertext to explore something more existential. With dialogue that sounded vaguely psychotherapeutic, Fosse's examination of the depressive ego was poignant and truthful, as anyone who has pondered suicide might attest. Swedish critic Leif Zern reads much of Fosse's dramaturgy as...