Gold Rush

Who were they, these sorry guys wandering around the wastelands of Alaska looking for gold back in those days of the 1920s? Don’t think too long about the daring, fighting optimist with a dream to warm his heart. The truth is: most of them where just tourists, travelling around Alaska to get a good laugh over those poor bastards actually looking for the gold.

When one of these sad souls had fought his way into the deepest wilderness looking for the golden dust there were already a couple of tourist waiting there laughing at him.

We wanted to do that too! We wanted to laugh all we could at somebody else’s dream. Is that allowed? And is the joke on you if you dream and it isn’t likely at all that that dream will come true?

A dyslexic, second-generation Muslim with cerebral palsy plays the leading role of the tramp who, against all odds, ends up with the gold and gets the girl. Gold Rush is about our longing for good stories and about how we must have a bad starting point to reach the
perfect ending. Based on the Charlie Chaplin film The Gold Rush.

The film was a heartbreaking comedy; or a drama clowning its way towards the ridiculous ending.
The performance was an assault. We had a tramp with spastic paralysis. And we let him live a story about a man, who gets it all in the end.

Nobody knows whether Amir Becirovic gets what he dreams of. But in that hour the performance played, we teased him with the big happy ending and took him through all the hardship of the film. We beat him up, put him on fire and forced him to eat a shoe.

Gold Rush was all about our love for great stories and how much we need (other peoples) misery to create a happy ending. As other of our performances, this one was created by our fascination for those Hollywood-skills in being great storytellers, and yet very condescending toward reality all at the same time.

Gold Rush was performed 6-27 November 2010 at NyAveny in Copenhagen.