A Staged Reading of a New Swedish Play
Translated by Verne Moberg, Directed by Lisa Pettersson Bearpark
With Mary Keefe as Barbro and Brett Umlauf as Mary
A rich girl and a poor girl, best friends growing up, go their separate ways for thirty years and then meet in an explosive reunion. Mary, now a nun, and Barbro, an artist, dare to discuss such sensitive subjects as death, love, lust God, and liberation.
Friends of the Columbia Swedish Program may remember our Bellman soprano Brett Umlauf, and the actor Mary Keefe, who played the leading role in several of our readings (e.g., as Selma Lagerlöf). Here they are featured as the nun and the artist characters in Hjärterhus (House of Hearts). Its author, Elsie Johansson. is a remarkable role model and a popular proletarian novelist-poet in Sweden: her literary debut was in the 1940s, and her first drama, written in her eighties, was produced at Uppsala Stadsteatern last fall. After working in the post office for many years, she was divorced in her seventies following 55 years of marriage. The message: it’s never too late.
Sponsored by the Columbia Swedish Program with the assistance of the Consulate General of Sweden in New York, the Swedish Institute, and the Swedish Women’s Educational Association in New York. The public is invited and admission is free. Donations are welcome.