Elin Skarin in “The Black Rider” at the Folkteatern in Gothenburg

There is a gun hanging on the wall.

Like animal horns. Dead, bloody corpses hang on the stairs. This is a hunting lodge with elements of horror. The Black Forest lurks behind it.

Young Wilhelm and Kätchen have fallen in love. But Kätchen’s family has been hunters for generations and in order to catch her, the office goblin Wilhelm has to learn to shoot. The solution is a pact with the devil, who gives him bullets that can hit anything he wants.

But it’s not all darkness and devilry during the dress rehearsal of The Black Rider at the Folkteatern in Gothenburg.

The first meeting with the ensemble takes place in front of a golden curtain. Although the actors move like drugged zombies and look a little gross, they do so in chic and almost burlesque clothing. Finally, they broke out into a lively song and dance number.

As actress Elin Skarin describes “The Black Rider,” the strange 1990 collaboration between William S. Burroughs, Tom Waits and Robert Wilson:

– It’s a striking, strange, dark piece. A lively musical theater with dark undertones.

The last time she was on stage at the Folkteatern, she was naked and gave birth to an egg, which made some headlines.

But it’s really nothing new. Elin Skarin already had a performance in drama school where she ran naked across the stage.

“I felt like I saw a lot of naked men on stage and that it was straightforward,” she says.

Elin Skarin completed state acting training in Stockholm straight after high school. Since graduating in 2012, she has played all over the country: Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg, Linköping, Norrköping.

When she met the theater and art collective Konstab a few years ago, something happened. What they were doing felt “artistically different” than what others were doing.

– You have an anti-attitude. At a time when art is meant to be sold and theater tickets sold, there is a movement among those who say, “No, art should be art.”

She herself did the viral solo performance “Skådis i bur” at Kontraer in Stockholm, where she locked herself in a cage for three days. The audience had to submit things for her to play with.

Where do you see the line between theater and performance? Does it exist?

– I insist on standing in it with one foot at a time. A friend said it was a performance, but I thought, “No, because I say it’s theater.” “It’s a revolution in what theater can be,” says Elin Skarin.

The performative, sometimes disgusting elements reappear in Elin Skarin’s art.

In Konstab’s free interpretation She peed and drank her own piss on stage during Ingmar Bergman’s “Såsom i en sebene” at Dramaten 2023. And in another Konstab performance, “Europe after the rain,” Elin Skarin gave birth to the egg in the Folkteatern.

My impulse is to explore what is artistically interesting and I want to go far in that

It was described as extreme.

– I find it extreme to be human. “My impulse is to investigate what is artistically interesting, and I want to go far in doing so,” says Elin Skarin.

It can be tiring. As she herself says, you get tired when you walk far. And to get the stamp from outside. As if nudity is the only thing she does.

Elin Skarin is clear: the physical must have an artistic purpose.

– I would like to continue to be a freelance artist on stage. I can’t be interested in the outside view. My body is just one of many tools. “I use it when it suits me,” says Elin Skarin.

In “Europe after the Rain” the play was about birth, children and the birth of a work. On the Drama set, cups of pee were part of the scenography, and the men constantly went into different cubicles that the women were not allowed to enter.

Of course there is also a feminist point about freedom. To be a free, female body. Elin Skarin talks about women coming up to her after performances and thanking her.

– We see naked women’s bodies all the time in society, and that’s okay in a sexual context. But people get provoked when I joke about pussy because it’s so sacred in a way. Boys have always been allowed to joke, she says.

This spring is Elin Skarin So back to the folk theater.

There are many threads in her work that connect through The Black Rider. The music, the performance elements, the location. She even shares a room with Nina Jeppsson, her old classmate from drama school.

As a new resident of the west coast metropolis – “I love Gothenburg!” – It can be said that Elin Skarin has found a stable footing.

– Here the whole house is working on a performance, so I feel at home, even though I have only done one performance here so far. It’s luxurious, she says.

Parallel to the rehearsals At the Folkteatern, Elin Skarin also played in Paula Stenström Öhman’s “Sju sorters tysnad” at the Gothenburg City Theater. Later this spring the play will be performed at the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm. In the autumn she will be back at the Folkteatern to play in Örjan Andersson’s production of Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt”.

No rest, no rest, that is.

Elin Skarin also promises performance features in “The Black Rider.” But what will it be this time?

– You definitely have to see this.