Irreparabile Tempus is a farce/morality play written by Norwegian author Henrik Wergeland in 1828. The author, although barely twenty at the time, nailed a lot of criticism towards the educational systems, especially girl schools, which, he deemed, didn´t educate girls properly, and only made them perceptible to fashionist antics, or to be sold off to marriage - never actually putting any knowledge to use. As it turns out, the boys in the play are in the same plight, sold out to the same forces.
Four girls are seen dancing out of the school for the last time, "at last free from all that boring education". As it turns out, not one of them have actually grasped very much of all that education at all, even though the list of topics seems quite long. All they manage to do is to gabble up some gibberish of half digested knowledge which has a tendency to come out wrong. The teachers who meet them after the gratuadion turn in to dirty old men, not having to tutor them anymore.
Then, "aunt fashion" turns up. It is clear that this immense lack of deeper understanding makes the four girls an easy target for her machinations, and she quickly puts in expected roles and mindsets: Kathinka, the present leader of the Girl Posse, is to be an "intellectual", has to wear glasses and is taught how to "rebel" in interesting ways. Constance, the second, is taught to be a "religious seeker" of some kind, while Rosa, the third one, is to read all the silly dime novels and similar literature. Molly, the last one, is told to giggle all the time. Thus arrayed, and given "baskets" to hand over to the suitors (when they dump them), the boys arrive.
The boys, actually five all in all, is told to go into similar roles. One of them, Ego, is an intellectual student of law. The next, Stygge, is a sensible poet, while the third one is a kind of guitar-playing "rocker" type (as far as we can tell by the standards of 1828). The fourth one is very much into fashion in his own way, constantly trying to look good in a new coat. At the tail of those four, a young military man comes in, bragging on his braveness, to the chagrin of intellectual Kathinka.
The Girl Posse gather momentum when Thora, another girl from the school arrives. Thora is quite nerdy, and the other girls consider her a loser on the spot (she could actually be very similar to the mousy Willow Rosenberg of the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Thora ignores the other girls, states that she has seen through their appearences, and is quite sick of it. "Those pawns are being made by fashion and time, to be played out for their own fun", she states before leaving.
The game of courtship commences, and while some of the girls get into relationships with some of the guys, nothing lasts very long, and after a while, the girls begin to dance around themselves, while the men give them up completely. At this point, "aunt Time" arrives, giving the girls a good shock for the first time, and now they become clingy. The men shrug them off, while Time takes them, one by one, turning them into old women, and the men likewise to old men.
Then, at the end, Time beckons them all to the grave, while the players lament that they threw away all chances of a meaningful existence. In the end, the "learned lawman" Ego states the aesop of the play, as well as the Title Drop: "Irreparabile Tempus" - "Irrepairable time".
The epilogue shows mother Thora, who actually got to marry the military man (who made her life miserable), walking among the graves, reading the names of all the other characters, dead before her. She remembers them all, and comes to a fulfillment when Time eventually comes for her. She has lived a hard life, but it was meaningful, and when Time comes for her, she is not stern, but friendly. For Thora, then, the ending is a statement for the "repairable, not irrepairable time".
Tropes:
- An Aesop: "Never to forget the rules we got when the play started", as said in the play. Essentially a question of how to make life meaningful and good.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Both Fashion and Time show themselves as women - one of them sparkled up and greeted, the other one in dark clothes, and is essentially feared, for good reason.
- Assimilation Academy: The school the girls graduate from has some shades of this.
- Asshole Victim: All the core four girls come down as this - victims of both Fashion and Time. Ill prepared for life by a Sucky School, they stand no chance at all, and the way they behave towards Thora makes it even worse. But when Time ravishes Kathinka, it is hard not to feel a little sorry for her.
- Becoming the Costume: The girls are actually so shallow to begin with that the roles Fashion gives them stick as their actual personas for most of their lives, until Time brutally tears them off. As Ego states with regret, as well as the poet: There is almost nothing underneath.
- Book Dumb: Molly and Rosa, and even Constanze have some traits of this. When they try to impress aunt Fashion, their gabbling comes out like this. Quite ironic considering the long list of topics the Head Mistress is lecturing them on at the start of the play.
- Dime Novel: What Rosa is instructed to read.
- Dirty Old Man: The teacher of religion and morals turn out to be this when he understands the girls have graduated. He is quick to compliment them on their - looks, before he begins to court them.
- Downer Ending: The characters, all of them, end up dead. Reasonably in a thematic play about life itself.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Thora, after a hard life of toil, living with an abusive husband. Time approaches her as an old friend, showing that hers was the better lot after all.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Kathinka (Choleric) Constance (Melancholic) Rosa (Phlegmathic) and Molly (Sanguine). On the male side: "poet guy" Stygge (Choleric), "Guitar guy" Bladder (sanguine), "learned guy" Ego (phlegmathic) and "fashion guy" Mope (Melancholic).
- Girl Posse: The oldest example in Norwegian theatre, at least.
- Good Is Not Nice: Time is not evil in any sense, she has a task to fulfill, and does it. The loss is on the main characters who didn´t take the hint from the beginning. Fashion, on the other hand, is seemingly nice, but essentially destroys the people she instructs.
- The Grim Reaper: Time fills this role to a T, and could easily be presented with an hour glass. She leads the main characters straight for the churchyard. A rare example of an Anthropomorphic Personification of death that is actually female (a good 160 years before Neil Gaiman created his charming goth girl version).
- It's All About Me: Fashion gives all the girls small mirrors to look at themselves in. Over the course of the play, they get gradually more and more self-absorbed, until Time takes them.
- Jerk Jock: The young officer, who wishes to show himself as tough and brave. Kathinka tries to break him by talking, but in the end, he ventures off. The Epilogue reveals that he actually married Thora, and did not treat her well.
- Mood Whiplash: All seems fine and dandy, and then Time shows up. It gets progressively darker from there.
- One-Gender School: A girl school all considered.
- Only Sane Man: Thora. Clearly Surrounded by Idiots when she is on stage.
- Rapid Aging: Aunt Time does her work without delay.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Thora, who walks off, clearly stating her disgust. Later, the poet, when he essentially tells the women to screw themselves.
- School Is for Losers: Our Girl Posse seems to have that attitude, mentioning how nothing they ever learned will ever be put to use, and ridiculing the only pupil who wishes to pursue more knowledge - Thora. Even Thora acknowledges that the only thing the school she went to could do was to make losers, hinting at the four girls she leaves behind.
- Signature Laugh: Molly, instructed to giggle for everything.
- Sucky School: A high school with a wide range of topics, yet unable to actually teach their students anything important? Check. Teachers who suck up to the rich and well-to-do girls in class while belittling the less fortunate? Check. Teachers who come out as a little short of actual knowlegde on their subjects? Check. And to top it off: Teachers who actually hit on their students. The main characters have learned to team up against "losers", at least - even before Fashion shows up.
- Take That!: Towards the school system, especially the Real Life school Wergeland´s sisters went to.
- Unwitting Pawn: Lampshaded by Thora, who muses if the other characters are "pawns, made by Time to be played by Fashion, or Fashion to be played by Time, or Time for the fun of it". Thora, coming with a stack of books to educate herself even further, is possibly the only character to see through the entire charade.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Actually, time itself.
