Broken Heart Story is the story of two women. The main characters are a mannish writer and her complete opposite, a vain and love-hungry scatterbrain. Both women seek happiness in the way they see best, but also fettered by the definitions and expectations of the world surrounding them. In the end, the women’s conflicting conceptions of freedom and perhaps a genuine lack of it lead them face to face on the brink of a momentous decision.
Broken Heart Story is a story of art and love. It examines the surrounding world first and foremost through the internal reality of the characters. The play delves into questions of identity, choices, and how to live to achieve happiness. The play doesn’t offer answers or guidance. Instead, it paints a poetic, absurd landscape overflowing with questions. The form of the text borrows influences not only from American pop culture but also Brecht’s tableau-like learning plays and their form of direct audience address.
The rainy world of the play nevertheless bubbles with humour and a light touch in the face of big questions. Beneath its naive style, Broken Heart Story creates an overview of contemporary society, especially through its female characters. ”To be a subject or an object?” wonders a whiskered woman, a cat’s skull in her hand.
"Some questions:
Can art change reality?
When did you last comfort someone else?
Do you want a gift?
Do you like ketchup?
Do you like driving fast?
Where does the soul reside?
When did you cry last?
What do you think about theatre?
Do you watch F1 races sometimes?
Is it raining over there?
What is love?"
In addition to the Finnish productions, it has been produced by the Ingenue Theatre at the Center For Performance Research in New York.
3 F, 2 M. Available: ENG, DAN, EST, CZE, GRE
Song
whenever I see a laugh wicked and grand
when I see the waves kissing the sand
when I see the sun and the strand
I remember you
and those days
those spring days
that will never come again
whenever I see rain come from the sky
when I see that autumn is nigh
when I see leaves drift from on high
I remember those days
those spring days
that will never come again
and my heart, now chilled by the frost
grieving and pining for days ever lost
and the happiness
and those days
those spring days
that will never come again
Prologue
CHORUS
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is a theater at this edge of town. In this town, everything is the way it used to be. Children run down the street. A red car drives past. But one house on the side of the road is falling apart. Dark clouds drift above the house. The grass is overgrown and the door has been left ajar. The windows are broken. The house has been overrun by water and green algae. Inside the house sits a whiskered woman. She sits and stares into the distance with a glazed expression. The wind rustles the tattered pages of a phone book. This is a story about that whiskered woman and how everything really happened.
The whiskered woman comes to life and begins to talk.
AUTHOR
Let me explain how I ended up like this. I’ll have to start from a certain time a while back. I’m an author, you see, but these events have thrust me into an extremely difficult predicament.
ABSENCE
It Must be Fall
AUTHOR
One morning I wake up to a cold wind blowing through my house.
The door has been left open and there’s a tangled heap of clothes on the floor.
It appears as if my Soul has disappeared.
I gaze at the raindrops on the windowpane.
CHORUS
Red leaves drift to the ground.
It must be fall.
My Soul
AUTHOR
My soul is extremely vain. She wears a miniskirt. She uses red lipstick and cloyingly sweet perfume. And she never goes out in public without high heels. The most annoying thing about this is that she apparently believes she’s Pretty Woman, from that movie, you know the one, right? She looks just like a whore. I’ve tried to tell her that a woman ought to be independent. But all she does is spend all day looking in the mirror.
All right, so we had a little argument. I’m a political author, you see. I only deal with important themes, such as capitalism and death. I was working on an important political masterpiece. But my Soul wasn’t the least bit interested. She just kept curling her hair. There’s no way I could accept that, you understand.
CHORUS
Did her feelings get hurt?
(...)
[English translation of the play by Kristian London]
"When I first read the script I was moved by the story, but was also delighted by the style. This play is upside-down, circular, naturalistic, absurdist and tempestuous in its storytelling. The language is visually descriptive and the script leaves enormous room for imagination in staging."
[nytheatre.com interview with Rebecca Martinez, a choreographer and actor in Ingenue Theatre, Brooklyn, NY]
Broken Heart Story deals with the appeal of surface and how posing the big questions is impossible these days. Which is precisely why it is able to ask them.
What’s the point of independence, if you’re not allowed to experience love? What’s the point of love, if its price is losing one’s self?
