Hans Petter Dahl and Anna Sophia Bonnema together make up MaisonDahlBonnema, a company that took shape under the wing of Needcompany. After 'The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny', which was selected for the 2008 Theatre Festival, and 'Ricky and Ronny and Hundred Stars – a Sado Country Opera', they are now rounding off their contemporary opera trilogy featuring the couple Ricky and Ronny with 'Analysis – the whole song'. This trilogy is one of the most remarkable works to hit the stage in the last few years. The main characters are Ricky and Ronny. They appear not to have the slightest illusion about their relationship. To compensate for this there are no peculiar ideas or perverse desires they shrink from. It seems that they have no time for values and standards. The first time, the story is set in a large city, the second somewhere in the cosmos and the third offers a journey through time and space. Altogether this is an opera that looks the ‘decline of Western society’ straight in the eye, sometimes in confrontation, but strangely enough sometimes in an almost comical way too. Opera is actually a rather misleading word for this work. Bonnema wrote the dialogues and Dahl set them to music. So there is constant singing, but the orchestration of the first two parts was mainly limited to live synthesiser. ‘In the third part the music is much richer, because apart from the singing we no longer perform it live,’ says Hans Petter Dahl. The set also remained very simple, although the first two parts ended with superb short animated films. In Analysis these animated films play the leading part. Dahl: ‘In Analysis we make abundant use of animated film. We used motion capture: we acted several characters in a sensor suit and that provided the basis for animated images that move realistically. In that way we are able to stage far more characters than we could with just the two of us. It was quite a struggle to get the film and the live action in balance.’ Bonnema: ‘We look back at two major figures of the 19th century: Freud and Marx. Analysis was inspired by their work and the Marxists of the Frankfurt School whom they inspired. We bring them face to face with a bunch of murderous children, with ourselves and with Adam and Eve.’ So is this a sort of therapy for the couple after the events of parts I and II? Dahl: ‘It is therapeutic in its own way, but I think it’s because everyone in our society is sick. It’s impossible to internalise all the contradictory demands that bombard us. What happens if you make a mistake? Can you start all over again?’ Bonnema: ‘We use all sorts of material to suit our purpose. That makes them very personal stories, but they are not autobiographical. We portray alter egos, possible alternative lives which have not necessarily been led.’ Dahl: ‘This piece contains reflections on a filmic reality that we find ourselves faced with. They are possible self-portraits in a parallel world. That doesn’t make it an agreeable world: it is coloured by what Lacan called le reel: a situation in which all the familiar contexts by which we understand things have disappeared. War situations are one example.’ You portray a fatally exhausted couple in parts I and II. But you two are always on the road together. Dahl: ‘It’s wonderful to be together all the time. If we didn’t perform together, we would never see each other. We do everything together, like farmers. But we have a big meadow.’