75w: Louise Lasser / Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Fooling Death

Inger ... Louise Lasser
Sven ... Chevy Chase
Death ... Tom Schiller

[No music, only the sound of a loudly ticking clock heard throughout the sketch. An out-of-focus image of a burning candle flame. We pull back and into focus to reveal that the candle rests atop a table on either side of which sit Sven and Inger. They stare soulfully into one another's eyes as they slowly sip from mugs. Behind them, a window. A superimposed English text scrolls up from the bottom of the screen as a narrator simultaneously reads it in mock Swedish gibberish.]

Text:
Sven is a struggling architect. He built the Svömmenplåken at Kvärkpårken in Stockholm for which he won the Knut Kvöllen Award. Lost in his work, he lives alone ... the architect of his own unhappiness.

[Sven and Inger stare at one another lustfully.]

Text:
Inger works designing ceative toys for intellectual Swedish children. She was married to Torben, a brutal man who stilled the child within her. They parted. She was unhappy, yet alive for the first time.

[Sven and Inger slowly touch one another's hands and faces erotically.]

Text:
On a holiday in Austria, Inger met Sven on the chairlift at the Vödelsan Ski Resort. They fell in love. In Stockholm, they met secretly sharing kisses under the Östergaffel Bridge or at the new Kjölvaska shopping center Sven was designing. With the money sven made from an access ramp study, They planned their first vacation. They drove their Volvo to Göteborg and then took the ferry boat to Gammel Färgspråk island. They delighted in their love and the warm summer days.

[As the next paragraph of text scrolls by, a shadowy figure with a pale white face appears outside the window behind Sven and Inger -- it is Death -- and he is the one narrating in Swedish. Sven and Inger turn to look at Death, then slowly wave him away. He departs.]

Text:
One night, held in each other's gaze, an apparition appeared at the window of their small rustic cabin. It was Death. "Let me in. I am death come to haunt, intimidate and make you very, very uneasy." Then Death went away... soon to return.

[With Death gone, Sven and Inger return to gazing at and touching one another. Abruptly, Death returns and sits down at the table with them, still narrating in Swedish. The couple ignores him completely.]

Text:
They tried to enjoy their vacation, but were troubled by dreams, visions, and a burning desire to wash hands and faces. Once Sven was gathering nutmeats and thought he was being pursued by burning sheep. Inger was making cookies and death returned. "It is I... Death. Are you alone? Where's Sven?" There was nothing for them to do. They both felt death's mocking presence... watching, silently jeering. So they made love.

[Inger pulls at Sven's lip, comically distorting it.]

Text:
And then they ordered pizza.

[Sven and Inger finally notice Death sitting beside them.]

Inger: [to Death, casually, in plain English] Could you go out and pick it up for us?

[Death bows his head to her in agreement.]

Sven: [to Death, just as casually] You want the keys to the Volvo? [Death bows his head to him in agreement. Sven fishes in his pocket for the keys.] I got 'em right here.

[Sven hands the keys to Death who, speaking mock Swedish, rises and exits as Sven and Inger return to staring at one another. We see Death pass by the window outside, mumbling Swedish, as Inger puts her hands on Sven's face. We hear the Volvo's engine start up and the sound of the car driving away as Inger twists and distorts Sven's face to comical effect.]

Text: [with no accompanying narration]
So Sven and Inger fooled death. There is no pizza in Sweden.

[We slowly zoom in on the burning candle as the image goes out of focus.]


Submitted Anonymously