Heavy Breathers
It’s not easy to be at the top of the food chain. More and more cells are refusing to divide and become like us. Many would rather turn into cancer. The future looks bleak. It’s been a long time since time was on our side. My God, if even nature doesn’t care, who’s going to save us?
In *Heavy Breathers*, we’re at Dr. Jack’s prenatal class. Everyone is past their due date, but the world is a dangerous place and the babies won’t come out. The women are swaying back and forth, about to burst, and groaning. Skyler has swollen feet, Zoe is losing her hair, Sheila is scared, and the universe couldn’t care less.
We have long suspected that nature has grown tired of us. Something has come between us. Now it’s stuck there, neither coming out nor going in. Nature has never really been on our side, anyway.
In *Heavy Breathers*, the female body takes center stage, serving as a breeding ground, a mystery, and a crime scene. There is both sex and violence, and as is typical of Susie Wang, it is the body that bears the brunt. In any case, it has never been on our side.
Death is on our side.
Susie Wang presents a theatrical fiction that plays with the mind and overwhelms the senses. *Heavy Breathers* is both a black comedy and existential body horror, with a plot that moves from life to death and back again, flowing freely between the mundane and the cosmic.
Susie Wang
Susie Wang is an Oslo-based theater group founded in 2017 by Trine Falch, Martin Langlie, Mona Solhaug, and Bo Krister Wallstrøm.
After many years in a performative tradition that brought reality onto the stage, they became curious about theatrical unreality. Like Susie Wang, they create fictional theater with characters and plots.
Language: English
Not suitable for children.
Supported by the Norwegian Cultural Council.
Co-production: Black Box Teater and the National Theater.
Heavy Breathers premiered at the Black Box Theater in Oslo in 2024. In connection with a guest performance at the National Theater in the spring of 2026, the production was adapted into a new version.
Concept: Susie Wang
Written and directed by: Trine Falch
Set design: Bo Krister Wallström and Oscar Solløs
Music and sound design: Martin Langlie
Lighting design: Phillip Isaksen
Stage Technology: Simen Ulvestad and Oscar Solløs
Special effects: Fanney Antonsdóttir
Dialect coach: Sarah Valentine
Producer: Bo Krister Wallström
Photo: Simen Ulvestad
Roles
Sheila: Mona Solhaug
Skyler: Julie Solberg
Zoe: Kjersti Aas Stenby
Clay: Phillip Isaksen
Morty: Simen Ulvestad
Dr. Jack: Henrik Rafaelsen
John: Oscar Solløs
