from King Mother
by Jenny Tunedal and Christina Ouzounidis
translated by Anna McGroarty
There is only one way to be her daughter, and that is to be her mother.
In a municipal care facility on the margins of existence, in a time post-diagnosis, a mother and daughter navigate the disorienting mists of memory loss, attended to by the caring figures of Night and Day. Inspired by Jenny Tunedal’s acclaimed 2017 poetry collection Rosor Skador (‘Roses Wounds’), and with nods to Shakespeare's King Lear, King Mother interrogates the many facets of familial love, and what happens to them in the absence of memory.
Written by Christina Ouzounidis – one of Sweden’s foremost playwrights and directors – and Tunedal herself in her dramatic debut, the play is a raw and piercing meditation on grief: at a shared history lost, as well as the loss yet to come. But it is also a piece that makes space for humour and tenderness – and, perhaps most of all, for love.
King Mother was widely hailed upon its first production, with critics prasing its charged language, dreamlike staging and luminous performances. This excerpt is taken from the early stages of the play, establishing the relationship between mother and daughter.
from King Mother
Play in one act
Duration: 100 minutes
Cast size: 4 people
Scene 3
THE NIGHT
It’s us, surely you remember us, we’ve been here all night, we were here yesterday, we’re the night, we’re here every night.
KING MOTHER
(Silent.)
THE NIGHT
She was a hard-working and relatively neat woman, anxious, hot-headed and neurotic. Rather friendly. Love-hungry, in her own words.
KING MOTHER
That’s right! (Brief pause.) Or was that the doctor?
THE NIGHT
It was the first time the doctor had ever seen a woman forget her own name as she was writing it.
KING MOTHER
(Silent.)
DAUGHTER
Do you remember your name?
KING MOTHER
You might say I’ve lost myself.
THE NIGHT
Good! You remember that. That’s what she said. Do you know what year it is?
KING MOTHER
New decade, new life.
DAUGHTER
Country, region, town, building, floor?
KING MOTHER
Here’s the night and out there it’s spring, but an answer does not a summer make.
THE NIGHT
The doctor says that the head movement is a symptom. You keep turning toward the face of your beloved, looking for help when you can’t manage. As if that were possible.
KING MOTHER
The dead are no less alive, that’s all we need to remember.
THE NIGHT
There will come a night when I won’t be able to save you. I think you’ll die that night.
KING MOTHER
I confess, I confess all the time!
DAUGHTER
What would happen if I hit you right now?
KING MOTHER
I keep thinking of the wrong night, or the wrong love. I confuse our loneliness.
DAUGHTER
What would happen if I stood outside your door each night? With a bouquet. My vast collection of love letters. Or a firebrand. An armful of sharp knives.
KING MOTHER
That’s not how I remember it, I ran around looking, you were gone!
DAUGHTER
I was the one looking. I looked for you, don’t you remember?
KING MOTHER
No one reads the letters where you ask for forgiveness, no one forgives your lack of maternal feeling.
THE NIGHT
Is she quoting now? Are you quoting now?
KING MOTHER
Leave me alone, let me sleep for a thousand years, no one ever stays, everyone leaves, no one stays, leave now.
(Noises outside.)
THE NIGHT
It doesn’t matter if someone said something outside, there’s nothing out there, forget about that now.
KING MOTHER
Were we supposed to remember or were we supposed to forget?
Scene 4
DAUGHTER
Things that cause worry:
All these pink doors
The matter of who’s screaming, writing, sleeping
A bird that doesn’t sing. A bird that has sung
A woman coughing incessantly with blankets soft like children on her lap and the same colour as a winter sunset
Electric pastels, stylized lilies
A woman who walks and walks, always toward doors
Very dark, drained, condemned eyes in the firm gaze that fixes on a spot just in front of the face
The space between eyes and doors
A short-haired woman who sleeps during the day and wakes at night
A woman who nods off on the sofa only to immediately resume the conversation with her father, the schoolmaster
The needleworker’s work-worn hands
On and on, tearing through black yarns
The abdicated mothers
Notes by night
Coarseness in the morning
Incessant grey mild snow all over the enclosed garden
And if someone goes into it
Ex-wives
Hard glass, inside and outside
Scene 5
(DAUGHTER in.)
DAUGHTER
Hello mum.
KING MOTHER
It’s no good, just no good, it’s on and off, everyone keeps dying all the time and then they’ve all got to come here too, all the dead, I’m busy enough as it is. Don’t make anything happen, please do, then we can sit here and look out of a window.
DAUGHTER
Out into the yard where no one stands, just a couple of children in baggy trousers, coat hoods hanging like bluebells. Yes, let’s.
KING MOTHER
They would never grow here, they would become extinct.
DAUGHTER
Do you want to talk about them? The dead.
KING MOTHER
They can’t talk, what’s there to talk about?
DAUGHTER
The sun’s out, do you want to go outside?
KING MOTHER
Can’t you see, it’s like no one’s death, a pair of old gloves, what’s there to look at?
DAUGHTER
You can pretend that they’re two empty hands. Like when you’re born and reach for the light. Or for someone, full of hope.
KING MOTHER
You’re back again? Weren’t you here yesterday?
DAUGHTER
You don’t deserve anything I give you, I could blame you. I do.
KING MOTHER
Those children, are they just going to stand there looking baffled?
DAUGHTER
Yes.
KING MOTHER
Because they don’t have mothers either, maybe, or what do you mean?
DAUGHTER
I just want them to see the sea with their own eyes and they will.
KING MOTHER
What sort of answer is that?
(Pause.)
What are you thinking about?
DAUGHTER
Sleeping with you in this room for the rest of our lives.
KING MOTHER
A nightmare.
DAUGHTER
I keep hoping that something will happen and you won’t die.
KING MOTHER
Maybe I’d like to live in a dead end, actually. You don’t get a dog because you’re abandoned, but because you want to practice being it, maybe I’m longing here.
DAUGHTER
One memory, one single memory. It’s not been completely wiped after all.
KING MOTHER
(Silent.)
DAUGHTER
What do you like most about yourself?
KING MOTHER
That I find it so easy to say goodbye. That comes in handy now.
DAUGHTER
You won’t love me anymore.
KING MOTHER
I know.
DAUGHTER
The moment of death can look so different. It could be a little pocket torch.
KING MOTHER
No one called to raise the alarm, no one came. It continued to rain for hours, I continued to stay awake. Some screamed and screamed, some argued wildly about interpretive priority.
Something along the lines of: I shall always have a violent father, I shall always have an evil mother, always, (Brief pause.) I mean bad blood, I shall always have a blonde mother. I will call her the child!
DAUGHTER
I mean child. That I was a child that night, that you were not my child. It rained heavily for a long time and the water froze on the cold road surface. Even if someone had tried they wouldn’t have been able to reach the spot, that’s how dark it was. Such a compact darkness that the wild animals could have whispered the word 'cages' to each other. Deep like the oceans or the grave. Close like flesh. That nothing could be seen. That no one came, not even the rain, nothing. (Brief pause). Was that all? Is that all?
KING MOTHER
Come, I’ve longed so much. You could come with me.
DAUGHTER
It erases everything except love, this disease. It’s still there, and it will always be there. Do you remember my name?
KING MOTHER
Of course I remember.
DAUGHTER
(Doubtful.) Love, do you remember love?
KING MOTHER
No.
Kung Mor
Premiere: October 2022, at Teater Galeasen, Stockholm
Rights: Colombine Teaterförlag
We are grateful to Colombine Teaterförlag, Christina Ouzounidis, Jenny Tunedal and Anna McGroarty for permission to publish this translated excerpt.
Jenny Tunedal is a multi-award-winning poet. She has been twice nominated for the August Prize – in 2017 for her poetry collection Rosor Skador (‘Roses Wounds’) – the starting point for the play Kung Mor, and in 2022 for Dröm, Baby, Dröm (‘Dream, Baby, Dream’, reviewed in SBR 2023:1). Christina Ouzounidis is one of Sweden’s leading playwrights and directors. Some of her most renowned plays include Heterofil (‘Heterophily’, 2008), Vit, rik, fri (‘White, Rich, Free’, 2010), and Spår av Antigone (‘Traces of Antigone’, 2015). Her works have been translated into French, English, German, Greek, Turkish, and Mandarin.