I Was Beaten All Over: Unique international theatrical collaboration at this year’s Bergman Festival

This year’s Bergman Festival, held in Stockholm from 27 May to 6 June, will include a unique collaboration among a number of prominent European theatres. Using the book I Was Beaten All Over as a springboard, they will jointly create a performance for the Royal Dramatic Theatre’s main stage on June 2.

I Was Beaten All Over is based on Éléonore Mercier’s notes from her long experience responding to phone calls at an organization providing support to battered women. For seventeen years she wrote down the first sentence of every interaction: “I’d like to run off somewhere far away”; “My husband and I are having problems”; “I’m calling about a women in deep distress”. In the book, 1, 658 such sentences are recorded – and behind each sentence lay a story and an individual fate.

In the performance, one actor from each of the participating theatres will appear with a personal selection of sentences from the book. The theatres, all part of the international theatre network MITOS 21, include Det Kongelige Teater, Copenhagen; Deutsches Theater, Berlin; Stary Teatr, Krakow; Toneelgroep, Amsterdam; Théâtre National de la Colline, Paris; and Katona Jószef Színház, Budapest. Éléonore Mercier herself will be at the theatre on June 2.

The performance will be broadcast live on the web so that it can be seen by those unable to be present in the theatre. In Sweden, regional theatres will be able to participate in the project via the internet performance, readings and discussion.

I Was Beaten All Over appeared in France in spring 2010. A Swedish translation was published by Elisabeth Grate publishing house in 2011.

Questions about the collaboration with MITOS 21 should be addressed to the Royal Dramatic Theatre’s head dramaturge, Magnus Florin, at 08-665612 or magnus.florin@dramaten.se.

Head of Publicity Christina Bjerkander
Office: +46-8-6656147
Cell phone: +46-703-726147
Email: christina.bjerkander@dramaten.se