The present collection of three plays presents three significant themes in Lars Norén's work: Night is Mother to the Day (1982) is a family drama with conflicts borrowed from Norén's personal destiny. And Give Us the Shadows (1988) is a biographical play about Eugene O'Neill and is a sequel to his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night. Andante (2015) is a play of the absurd, the first of a trilogy about old age.
Norén's characters seek answers - within the family and beyond - to the eternal existential questions: who am I, where do I come from, where am I going. They are also distinguished by their original language – unforgiving, witty and at the same time musical and poetic. For all this, for the rich creativity, for the creative analysis of vital topics and for his enormous talent, Lars Norén is rightly called the "Strindberg of our time".
Lars Norén (1944–2021) was a Swedish playwright, poet, novelist and memoirist. He is the author of 18 poetry collections, four novels and over 100 plays, which have been translated into many languages and performed all over the world. He has been honored with a number of awards.
Regarded by many as the greatest Swedish playwright since Strindberg, Norén has dealt with the love-hate relationships of modern dysfunctional families in emotionally powerful and sombre plays spiced with absurd humour, such as Natten är dagens mor (1982; “Night Is Mother to the Day”).
Norén’s characters, like those of Strindberg, seem hopelessly locked into their closed family hell. In later works Norén left the home behind to explore the world of the unseen - prisoners, drug addicts, and those housed in institutions. He has, to the dismay of many, brought such people onstage to perform in his dramas, thus obliterating all borders between reality and fiction.
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