You haven't done what you were told and what the hell were you thinking. You've eaten chips when it turns out you should have eaten quinoa. You've smoked cigarettes when it turns out you should have submitted your tax return. You've bought and consumed food whose production is not ethically or environmentally defensible. You've texted someone at night. When you were drunk.

You've carried a knife. You've dropped it. You've developed nuclear weapons and blown up a continent. You've forgotten everyone's birthday. Or you didn't forget. You screwed up. You thought you'd get away with it. You've burned up bridges, cars, forests and farmland. You've caused a mass drowning in the Baltic Sea. You've stepped on a child's feet on public transport. You've wronged your brother.

Why aren't you better?

With the performance An Idiot Among Us, Sara Granér makes her debut as a theatre director and puppeteer. At Malmö Dockteater, she has created a universe of robotic papier-mâché puppets, hand-painted sets and a miniature opera machinery.

One theme of the play is guilt. The other is shame. In tableaux, a rather cruel world is shown where it is best to look around your own house if you don't want to fall straight into the abyss. Although there are no guarantees that you won't fall in anyway. The plot develops among talkative switchboard operators, surreal police interrogations and Finnish hockey matches. We follow a main character who persistently tries to get rid of the dog head that has suddenly moved into the apartment.

Why me? There are so many idiots. Completely sick-in-the-head idiots. It could have happened to any of them. Maybe deep down you know. Well, deep down you don't know anything in particular. There you are made of flesh and bones which are made of lime and lime is made of calcium which is an element which is made of atoms.

Anyone familiar with Sara Granér's images and texts will probably recognize some of them, but here the rooms and figures have taken on a 3-dimensional form. The robot puppets, which are controlled using PlayStation controllers, were developed by students at Lund University of Technology during the course "Freeform production in the product development process". The robots' angular and mechanically limited movements, together with the blah blah blah script and the carefully executed scenography, form a very peculiar whole that is unlike anything else.

PARTICIPATION:

Idea, script, direction, set design, puppeteer: Sara Granér

Puppet player and set design assistant: Annie Eliasson

Lighting design and driving technique: Olivia Grefve

Robots: Johannes Ekdahl Du Rietz and students at Lund University of Technology

Sound and music: Petter Herbertsson

Producer: Sanne Hellberg

Dramaturgical advisor and artistic sounding board: Erik Holmström

In collaboration with: Lund University of Technology

Premiere: March 6, 2019.