ANIMALS DYING

A mother and a son becomes traumatised after experiencing the instant killing of all their 191 cats when their home is raided by the police. The Canadian scientist Julie Ann Smith sacrifices her own eyebrows and builds herself a human cage in an attempt to live on equal terms with her pet rabbits. In the 1970s, a chimpanzee named Lucy learns how to drink cocktails and masturbate with a vacuum cleaner as part of a strange scientific experiment where a psychotherapist tries to raise her as a human child. Animals Dying is a meditation in three acts on the eternal question about what it really is that separates humans from animals.

The play was a co-production between Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theater and The Swedish Theater in Helsinki. It toured in both Sweden and Finland and was also invited to play at Stockholms Stadsteater.

In 2015, the play was included in the anthology Drama! – Tre svenska pjäser along works by America Vera-Zavala and Mattias Brunn, published by Bokförlaget Atlas.






INFO & CREDITS

ORIGINAL TITLE Djur som dör
LENGTH 80 min
LANGUAGE Swedish
THEATER Riksteatern – Sweden’s National Touring Theater and Svenska Teatern in Helsinki, Finland
YEAR 2010

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Marcus Lindeen
SET DESIGN AND COSTUMES Daniel Åkerström-Steen
MUSIC Hans Appelqvist
VIDEO DESIGN David Giese
POSTER DESIGN Martin Falck
RESEARCH AND INTERVIEWS Rosa Fernandez
PRODUCER Helena Ringvold

CAST Eva Melander, Henrik Vikman, Hans Appelqvist, Veronika Mattsson




EXTRA MATERIAL

︎ Download program notes as PDF (Swedish)