The Guitar Man

A man makes his living singing the same songs day after day on the edge of town. He plays to an audience that is always on the move, always passing him by. People call him ‘The Guitar Man’. On a winter’s night he takes shelter in a bar and tells us his story: he came here because of a woman, and stayed here because of a son. Searching for answers to the past, present and future, he reaches a decision: to stop playing.

In a world made up of winners and losers, The Guitar Man asks what is left when we reject the role we are expected to play? Written in 1997, Norwegian writer Jon Fosse – one of the most produced European playwrights in the world – speaks to a post-industrial society in crisis, where rootlessness and homelessness are the common experience. Weaving text, song and silence to create an intimate, physical and disquieting theatrical experience, this tender study of a so-called ‘outsider’ traces the delicate balance between loneliness and longing, loss and salvation.

Joan Knight Studio