Exercises in Darkness

A woman in midlife begins therapy with a psychologist she calls “the PTSD man”. Over the course of a year, she meets him each week. At first, he leads her back through the buried traumas of her past. Gradually, she gathers the strength to confront the defining wound – the trauma that has shaped her life and left her living with PTSD.

Exercises in Darkness traces a woman’s life from a childhood overshadowed by a violent father, a sister who does not survive, and a mother silenced by taboo and shame. Yet it is also a story of coming of age – of becoming a mother, of experiencing boundless love for three sons and, later, for grandchildren. In her search for healing, she must lay aside the expectations imposed upon her as daughter, sister, mother and friend, and step into the darkness itself. There she confronts a tangle of complex emotions and a rage sharpened by the presence of a stranger – a woman whose fate she once held in her hands in a single, irrevocable moment.

Director Anja Behrens transforms the acclaimed novel into an uncompromising, physical and deeply poetic stage work about breaking silence and reclaiming one’s voice. At its centre stands Sofie Gråbøl as the woman, joined by dancer Hilde Ingeborg Sandvold as the stranger whose presence forces her to confront – and ultimately give voice to – both their intertwined stories.

Recommended from 15 years old