They met already when Simon Norrthon attended drama school and the first time they worked together was in "Talk! It's so dark" 1992, a film about a young Nazi who begins to see a Jewish therapist.
Since then, Simon Norrthon has worked with Suzanne Osten on about ten stage productions and several films.
She was the youngest person I knew. She always built her own universes with new collaborators. She fostered generations of film and theater workers, he says.
Humor and Hope
Norrthon emphasizes that humor was always present in Suzanne Osten's creative work, at the same time as she constantly dug into sorrow and her own traumas. Characteristic of her was "her pathological lust for life":
She always hoped and gave hope and confidence. She was no nihilist, she always believed in humanity, says Simon Norrthon.
He also thinks that Suzanne Osten distributed power so that everyone felt seen and needed. For him, she was a friend, demanding and intense, but also warm and considerate. And she always put the child in the center.
What she has done for children's culture is historic. She was the wisest. It's an enormous loss.
This is also what actress Ann Petrén thinks, who was at Unga Klara for twelve years from 1991. She describes the playwright as "a guiding star" in Swedish theater and film.
A beacon who has held up the sign and shown "this is what we should fight for". We should have a clear child perspective. It has meant a direction for me and many others. And now the sign is taken down, I feel, says Ann Petrén and emphasizes:
You can't produce the kind of productions she made without a good process.
Fearless
Even Johan Hilton, cultural editor at Göteborgsposten, highlights Suzanne Osten's achievements for children's and youth theater, with the founding of Unga Klara.
She is one of those who brought Swedish children's theater to the world. There are many foreign stage creators who have enviously looked towards Sweden, and we have Suzanne Osten to thank for that, he says.
She had an impressive sense of what was in the air, according to Hilton, who says that she, among other things, contributed to the breakthrough of Lars Norén's plays becoming so big. He will miss her outspoken fearlessness in the debate.
One of her most famous productions is called "Difficult People" and Suzanne Osten was indeed a difficult person herself, in the most amusing way.
