A THEATRE MONOLOGUE BASED ON REAL EVENTS
I have enjoyed researching this amazing woman a lot, a woman surviving both as the daughter of the world’s richest tsar and as a strange cat lady. She lives and goes through all the extremes from being shot, to years in mental institutions, to being the centre of New York’s High Society. She fights systems, lawsuits, attitudes, being moved around and people’s norms constantly and simultaneously taken aback by it. A survivor, fighter and unbeatable. Whether she is the real Anastasia is something in the eyes and opinions of others, she herself is convinced that she is, proud, indestructible, smart, clever, distrustful, strong, tough-hearted, victorious, loves and hates snobbery in equal parts, and ends up as far away from St. Petersburg as possible surrounded by cats, dirt and garbage in Virginia USA. She can easily laugh at herself and is an insane connoisseur of people. Anastasia has never had a job, her ‘job’ was to ‘convince’ the world that she is who she is.
It has been a pleasure to play her, to be allowed to jump from crazy, to doped, to imperial, to cat lady in 50min. and to get under the skin of Anastasia/Anna Tchaikovsky/Anna Anderson/Anna Manahan/and all the other aliases and names she has had and lived under. An incredible woman and story, without a doubt a wonderful different role model. DNA has consciously shown that she was not ‘Anastasia’, conspiracy theories overturn those claims, no matter if it is her or not, she has left her mark on the world and me through her being and steadfastness. ‘Anastasia’ has been like a Fabergé egg to play just when I and we thought that there was this entrance to her another new space has opened, which has shown yet another unexpected side to her. A performance and a story where reality has continued to surpass imagination.
Ulla Koppel wrote ‘I am Anastasia’ and directed it and fortunately she asked me to play the part. Our 11th performance together, 9th theatre monologue. It was staged as no. 2 theatre monologue in the autumn of 2024 and I only had 3 weeks to learn the 25 pages of text, very intense, funny, porous and in several different stages of fatigue, an explosion of joy, pleasure and love of performance in Anastasia’s spirit and states of mind, with fantastic and emphasizing accompaniment of Anders Koppel’s music written for Bjarke Mogensen and his Accordion.
Anastasia on her 30+ yearlong court case “It finally ends with the verdict; No one is able to prove who I am. No evidence for. No evidence against. No rights. No inheritance!”