Youth and humor

Kunsten å bli voksen is a stand-up musical by Sebastian Tjørnstad, dj soulbase and Zawadi. In it, they take us on an unfiltered look back at Sebastian's youth and what it was like to grow up without legs and arms.

The piece first started seriously then one of his friends interrupts and turns the music around so it starts in a funnier way and I liked that contrast and also how the music was used to create atmosphere when he was talking, plus it was one of the performers controlling the music. Even though they talked about growing up and making mistakes and learning from them in a funny way, I feel like the combination of theater and stand up clashed a bit. Theater is very scripted and stand up is supposed to be freer, which made it a bit difficult to understand what kind of performance it was. Although I liked that they used music in their show, the stand-up itself was a bit too tied to the script. I also liked the talk show element the DJ added along the way, for example about involuntary erections or heartbreak.

During the production, it was clear that Sebastian had a distinctive personality. As he said himself, he was tired of people stigmatizing him, and with this personality it seemed that he wanted to see how far he could take this personality before people let it take over the fact that he had no legs or arms.

They were an important message in the piece, that you can achieve things others wouldn't expect, make the best of the situation you're in and don't let it define you too much. I thought Sebastian said a lot of things that young people need to hear, but at the same time he masked it in humor so it's easier to take in. For example, when he said "remember, it gets worse before it gets better, before it gets worse before it gets better again", is something that young people should know to take with them in life.