Sem ter Tja is a one act play based on the play Come and Go by Samuel Beckett. The story focuses on an elderly man suffering from dementia, treating the audience as if they have come for a visit and he shall regale them with a story from his youth.

 

The story he chooses to tell is from the time of the second world war, when he was a young boy and he eavesdropped on a conversation between three local women. While he tells the story the women reenact it but also interact with him, as a living remnant of them which exists in his memory.

He retells the story three times, but often gets lost and forgets where he is and what’s happening

 

The first is a somewhat coherent retelling of what he overheard, the conversations he has with the living memory of these women showcase his opinion of them, what he remembers and what he assumed about them at the time.

When he repeats the story the second time, it is somewhat less coherent and he is quite confused at the memories played out, because they clash with the perception he has created in his mind. What we in fact see are fragments of conversations the women had with his mother and he witnessed, but repressed. 

When the story is repeated the third time, the women take on symbolic, archetypal roles within his shattered mind, forcing him to confront his fears about his failing memory and impending death. 

The play however ends as it began… with a beginning, as if nothing happened because for him… it hadn’t.

 

Due to Covid-19 quarantine restrictions at the time, forbidding any in person meetings outside of family units, the play could not be performed live nor could it be postponed due to the grant agreement which financed it.

It was therefore filmed over Zoom and broadcast over YouTube adding another level of meaning as it featured an elderly man, filming himself in his isolation, slowly losing his mind with no one allowed to come and help him.