The play details a painful episode of Estonia’s history, and the programme included a basic outline of Finland’s southern neighbour’s path to independence. The opening scene emphasises the fate of women at the hands of men throughout the story, by showing a woman being tortured by Soviet soldiers in an Estonian town hall in 1947.
The play was produced by the Borealis theatre group. It is directed by Elgiva Field, working from Eva Buchwald’s translation from the original Finnish.
Oksanen has won several awards, including the prestigious Finlandia prize in 2008. She was born in 1977 in Jyväskylä from an Estonian mother and Finnish father.
