Leea Klemola
Leea Klemola (B. 1965) is one of the most interesting and
indeed shocking theatre practitioners in Finland today. She
began her career as an actress. In her plays she breaks the
bounds of theatre, creating forms of expression which are
new, unabashed, and honest. Klemola’s works examine
shame, the body and sexuality, as well as love and
community.
The Arctic Trilogy
Klemola calls her play Kokkola (Kokkola, 2004, co-authored with Klaus Klemola) an arctic
tragedy. This absurd but also moving story, populated by colourful characters, has been both
a critical and popular success. The Kokkola saga continues in Kohti kylmempää (Into the
Cold, 2008) and New Karleby (2011) written by Leea with his brother Klaus Klemola.
Other plays
A series of plays co-authored with Pentti Halonen, Kahelianainen (Wacky Woman 1995),
Seksuaali (Sexual, 1998) and Anne Krankin päiväkirja (The Diary of Anne Krank 2001), raised
eyebrows due to their provocative style and deliberate absence of good taste. Jessika –
vapaana syntynyt (Jessica – Born Free, 2002) tells about a teenage girl’s life and growing
pains, though its main role was written to be performed by the oldest possible actress.
An actress and a director
Klemola is an award-winning actress, having won Finland's highest acting honour, the Jussi
Award, for her leading role in the Finnish movie Neitoperho (1997). In 2005 she was
recognized by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, which awarded her an Olavi Veistäjä Grant
for her significant contributions to Finnish theatre as a director and playwright. She is a
founding member of the Aurinko (Sun) Theatre in Helsinki, where many of her productions
were first produced.
Klemola, Leea – Klemola, Klaus
NEW KARLEBY
4 f, 8 m
Piano Larsson returns to Kokkola from Greenland upon the collapse of the new society and
his marriage of convenience. He no longer is what he once was, so he decides to transform
into something else, preferably a grandma. That means it’s time for lessons in grandmahood,
which are provided by his next-door neighbour, the actor Elli Frolov. Meanwhile, Arijoutsi tries
to recapture the old feeling of community, but Lömmarkki has found Jesus. Piano’s father
Kaulus is forced to shepherd spotted hyenas brought over from Africa whose existence
revolves around scrounging. No wonder the hyena boy Euroloordi gets bored and wants to
become human.
The Arctic Trilogy comes to a worthy conclusion in a play where the fundamental questions
of life – love, family, and what it really means to be human – are resolved in the familiar
raunchy, blunt style. Everyone wants to change, everyone needs help, but who will dare to
ask for it?
“You see I just thought like I'm really supposed to support and protect people, and be there
at crash scenes fast, and it's like really difficult to choose one's driving routes so one doesn't
come across people you owe money. And then it's sort of like embarrassing, when one
comes across a major disaster, and one should try to save lives, and then you feel relieved
when someone dies, because no matter who the victim is, if he's from anywhere this side of
Finland it's someone you owe at least a million. That's your mother there then, trying to kick
people's arteries and get their drops mixed to somehow curb your debts just a little...”
“At the latest by now, one dares assert that Klemola’s Arctic Trilogy is one of the most
significant theatre events of the 2000s.”
-Jussi Suvanto, Aamulehti
“In the twisted but coherent world of the trilogy, strangeness is so inherent that it swiftly turns
into normalcy. To the end, this disarmingly screwball saga extols tolerance and
understanding of a near-limitless elasticity.”
-Anu Puska, Savon Sanomat
“New Karleby is a riotous journey, simultaneously foul-smelling and poetic. It moves both
colossally large and small, seemingly insignificant everyday themes along side by side. The
result is an irresistible polyphony.
A mythic connection to some primordial twilight runs through the performance in a powerful
undercurrent, rending the unsustainable contemporary image of humanity to shreds with a
liberated, seldom-encountered gusto and humour.”
-Maria Säkö, Helsingin Sanomat
Laura Gustafsson
Laura Gustafsson (1983) is an author and playwright from
Helsinki. She has a BA in dramaturgy and Finnish literature and
will graduate from the Theatre Academy’s dramaturgy
programme in 2012. Her first novel, Huorasatu (“Whorestory”),
will be published in autumn 2011. In the novel, Laura deals with
femininity and goddessness. She also swears a lot. More than
anything in the world, Laura loves animals and her director
boyfriend. Laura’s favourite play is Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis.
She’s not extremely depressed, though, anymore. She also likes tofu, zombie flicks, make-up,
corsets, Lady Gaga, and South Park. Laura thinks writing should always be a political act. You
can get to know Laura a lot better at neitilaura.blogspot.com.
Laura Gustafsson
ANOMALIA
This play’s three interlacing stories deal with the conflicts between child and parent, human
and animal, nature and civilisation. One of the stories is completely fictitious, one is loosely
grounded in true events, and one is based as far as possible on true events.
The last-mentioned of these is the story of Peter Connelly, who was initially referred to in the
news as Baby P. His mother, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s brother physically abused this
English child to death in August 2007, before he had reached the age of 18 months. The
authorities and doctors had numerous opportunities to intervene and prevent this tragedy,
but their responses were utterly insufficient. I have taken the critical turning points at which
Baby P could have been rescued from his violent home life and written them as scenes for
the play. In them, I attempt to trace the logic according to which the adult world functioned
in this case: Why did adults turn their backs on Baby P?
The first story presented during the play tells of the Indian wolf-children Amala and Kamala,
who were found in the forest in 1920. The actual events are disputed, and I selected for my
play the version that interested me most, filling in the gaps with additional material invented
by myself. Pastor Joseph Singh ”rescues” these girls from the wolf that has raised them and
brings them to civilisation, and grows frustrated when they do not adopt human ways.
Later in the play, we encounter the adult Kamala and Joseph in London of the 2000s, where
Kamala, who is assumed to be autistic, is shuttered inside a mental institution.
The third protagonist, the Stewardess, is a forty-year-old Finnish woman who flies between
Helsinki, London, and Calcutta in her work for a low-cost airline. On one of her flights, the
Stewardess encounters Joseph Singh. They have sex, and the Stewardess becomes
pregnant. The doctor informs her that the foetus has Down’s Syndrome and urges an
abortion. But the Stewardess decides to give birth to the child nevertheless and turn it over to
someone else to raise. She travels to Tallinn to procure a sufficiently large, vicious, and
protective dog from a kennel.
After the birth, the Stewardess doesn’t return to Finland. She flies forever, hoping that a black
hole will swallow the plane. At the end of the text, in 2012, Baby P’s mother, now freed from
prison, boards her flight. Also aboard is the adult Kamala. In the guise of an angel, Baby P
hijacks and destroys the plane.
In the last image, we see a 4-year-old child in a Finnish backyard with a large dog.
With Anomalia, I wanted to offer a voice to those who don’t have one. The style of the play
makes for light watching, despite the heavy topics. The idea is for the tragedy to creep
surreptitiously under the recipient’s skin, for sorrow to emerge from beneath the laughter.
Heini Junkkaala
Heini Junkkaala (born 1975) is a
playwright and dramaturge from
Helsinki.
She graduated in 2006 with a Master's
Degree in Performance Arts from the
Finnish Theatre Academy, before which she had studied Finnish literature at the University of
Helsinki.
Themes central to Junkkaala's works include generational differences, gender diversity and
the paradoxes of Lutheran faith.
In addition to her career as a writer and a dramaturge, Junkkaala also teaches dramaturgy
and writing for the stage.
Heini Junkkaala
The Bride of Christ – and how another play was born
She was born in Oklahoma City, in the USA, in 1914 and was baptised as Dorothy Tipton. She
died in Spokane in 1989; at death she was known by the name of Billy Tipton. She was a jazz
musician who couldn’t find work as a woman and so decided, at the age of nineteen, to
bind her breasts to her torso with a sheet, dress in a man’s suit, and begin living as a man.
She was married four times; with her last wife, she adopted her three sons. The boys did not
discover until after their father’s death that Dad was biologically a woman.
The first time I read about Billy Tipton, I immediately knew I would write a play about her. The
name of this play became Play for Me, Billy. The rehearsals begin tomorrow, and an Englishlanguage translation should be available in November 2011.
As a writer, I crave the real. I’m fascinated by real people and real events. I’m more
interested in observing than imagining, documenting than inventing, and the realistic than
the fantastic– at least as a starting point for writing. My finished plays are rarely mimetic, or
directly derivative of reality. Writing, storytelling, inevitably fictionalises the object of study. My
plays often include an unreal dimension, the possibility of the absurd or the miraculous.
The Bride of Christ – the play that is being shared at this event – is a documentation of my
own life and thoughts. I spent a large portion of my childhood and youth in a conservative
Lutheran parish where my father worked as pastor. As an adolescent, I came to realise that
my sexual orientation was not acceptable to my parish. I was thrust into a profound spiritual
and religious crisis. The Bride of Christ is the staging of an internal dialogue that has lasted for
twenty years.
The Bride of Christ is the story of Marion, who is about to marry her girlfriend. Just before the
wedding, she hears God speaks to her. God promises to heal Marion of her homosexuality.
Marion begins attending services at the conservative Simeon congregation, where she finds
a boyfriend whom she believes will help her heal and become heterosexual. Marion’s
mother, who is a liberal priest, is concerned about Marion’s spiritual development and
attempts at repairing herself. A series of impassioned theological discussions ensues. The
drama expands beyond the family, and like all religious wars, this one demands its sacrifice
too.
It’s important for me to, through my works, bring to the stage the other, the unfamiliar, the
confusing, and perhaps even the frightening. In Play for Me, Billy, that other is a man born
into a woman’s body. In The Bride of Christ, it is a fanatic gay activist or Christian
fundamentalist who believes that one can and should be healed of homosexuality.
The theatre is a good place to look at another person.
The unfamiliar becomes familiar.
The familiar becomes strange.
Our world of experience expands,
if even minutely.
Saara Turunen
Saara Turunen (b. 1981) is an up-and-coming Finnish playwright
born in Eastern Finland. She has graduated from the Theatre
Academy Helsinki. Turunen has also studied screenwriting. At
the moment, she works as freelance playwright and theatre
director in Helsinki and abroad.
Turunen is known for her straightforward and edgy style. She
has a distinct, provocative approach to her subjects; feminity,
sex and art. Her plays are both playful and aggressive, often
related to the world of fairy tale and pop culture. Turunen uses language both to irritate and
to charm. Her writing combines trivial verbal approach to clear poetic images.
By now, her most well-known play is the favourably received work BUNNY GIRL (Puputyttö
2007) which first premiered at the Theatre Academy Helsinki and due to the great success
was invited to the repertoire of the Helsinki City Theatre. The play speaks about woman's
purity and loss of identity. It depicts escaping and drowning into dreams, fantasies that
become invincible if one can't let them go. BUNNY GIRL asks whether a person can willingly
objectify oneself. BUNNY GIRL
has been tranlated into English, Spanish, German, Hungarian, Slovak, Russian, Danish, Polish
and Italian. The play has been published in Mexico by the Paso de Gato Theatre Editorial. In
addition to the Finnish productions, it has been staged in Spain and Hungary. It will premiere
in Mexico in August 2011.
Turunen´s provocative shortplay THE LITTLE JESUS (2009) premiered in Barcelona as a part of
the Theatre Lliure's repertoire.
In August 2011 Turunen´s newest play BROKEN HEART STORY will premiere at the Q-Theatre in
Helsinki in August 2011.
Turunen has been invited to participate among others in the International Forum of the
Theatre Treffen in Berlin, Forum of Young European Playwrights Neue Stücke aus Europa in
Wiesbaden, the Festival of European Contemporary Playwrights by the Theater Husets in
Copenhagen and l'Obrados d'estiu de la Sala Beckett in Barcelona.
Saara Turunen
BROKEN HEART STORY
Broken Heart Story is the story of two women. The main characters are a mannish writer and
her complete opposite, a vain and love-hungry scatterbrain.
Both women seek happiness in the way they see best, but also fettered by the definitions
and expectations of the world surrounding them. In the end, the women’s conflicting
conceptions of freedom and perhaps a genuine lack of it lead them face to face on the
brink of a momentous decision.
Broken Heart Story is a story of art and love. It examines the surrounding world first and
foremost through the internal reality of the characters. The play delves into questions of
identity, choices, and how to live to achieve happiness. The play doesn’t offer answers or
guidance. Instead, it paints a poetic, absurd landscape overflowing with questions. The form
of the text borrows influences not only from American pop culture but also Brecht’s tableaulike learning plays and their form of direct audience address.
The rainy world of the play nevertheless bubbles with humour and a light touch in the face of
big questions. Beneath its naive style, Broken Heart Story creates an overview of
contemporary society, especially through its female characters. ”To be a subject or an
object?” wonders a whiskered woman, a cat’s skull in her hand.
Some questions
Can art change reality?
When did you last comfort someone else?
Do you want a gift?
Do you like ketchup?
Do you like driving fast?
Where does the soul reside?
When did you cry last?
What do you think about theatre?
Do you watch F1 races sometimes?
Is it raining over there?
What is love?
(Broken Heart Story / Saara Turunen)
Jari Juutinen
I AM ADOLF EICHMANN
About the author
I’m a playwright and director. At the moment,
I work as artistic director at the Lappeenranta
City Theatre.
As a creator of theatre, my orientation is absolutely societal. For me, the personal is not
political; the political is personal. I’m interested in true stories and the self-evidences often
contained in them, which are fun to reflect on and unravel. I guess I’m a bit of a devil’s
advocate by nature.
I haven’t specifically sought out universal topics, but a couple of my plays have sprouted up
around them. Julia, Julia! (2007) tells the true story of a mother who ends up in a cycle of
debt and shoots herself and her family.
In the play I Am Adolf Eichmann (2005), I search for the human being behind and
overshadowed by the Nazi criminal – or, more accurately, the conscientious functionary.
The main characters of my plays are often people who have been condemned by public
opinion. These topics tend to make gloomy plays. Since I can’t be bothered to watch such
theatre myself, I usually avoid sentimentalism through humour, sometimes pretty vulgar
humour at that. I also find myself playing with genres, probably to keep the viewers awake.
Besides, I’m not particularly interested in their tears, but in their potential insights.
Now and then, when complete silence hovers in the auditorium at the end of a
performance, I feel the thrill of success. In that silence, I hear – or at least imagine I can hear
– the audience thinking.
I Am Adolf Eichmann
As its name suggests, the play tells about one the world’s best-known Nazi criminals, who was
kidnapped in Argentina to face trial in Israel. Eichmann, death’s legendary “forwarding
agent”, was responsible for the mass transport of Jews to the concentration camps of Nazi
Germany. He was hanged in Jerusalem in 1962, after a year-long trial.
The play gives voice to Eichmann and raises the central issues of humanity: What would I
have done? What would and do I do today? Am I part of the problem or its solution? The
play ponders complicity and responsibility, growth and forgiveness. The work, which is utterly
up-to-date, searches for the truth about humans by mirroring historical atrocities against
current phenomena, seeking points of intersection. The play is simultaneously tender and
oppressive, shamelessly fun and infinitely sad. It surprises the viewer by leaping impulsively
between genres and moods. The play brings together the grotesque and ballads, carnival
and sobriety; in it, Bertolt Brecht meets Monty Python.
There are dozens of roles in the play. The Luxemburg-based Theatre du Centaure performed
it with six actors (4m + 2 f); the version shown at the Lappeenranta City Theatre was
performed by a total of 11 actors (6m + 5f).
The play was performed in French at the Avignon-off theatre festival in 2008 and is currently
available in English, French, German, and Spanish.
Quotes from the press:
“In this play, it’s not a matter of what we see, but of what we allow ourselves to see within
ourselves, and what we’re prepared to do with that after the play has ended.” Etelä-Saimaa
“Juutinen gets his marvellous text to prickle.” Aamulehti
“The narrative solutions make the play exciting to watch and the rapidly shifting perspectives
leave plenty of room for humour.” Helsingin Sanomat
"… puis-je être ou devenir Adolf Eichmann, homme banal entre nous tous plutôt que
monstre? Ouvrons-nous assez les yeux sur notre inquiétant aujourd'hui? Ce sont quelques
unes des interrogations que pose ce spectacle très réussi et important. À charge pour nous
de chercher des réponses." La Provence
(eng: …could I be or become Adolf Eichmann, a man more banal than monstrous? Do we
open our eyes sufficiently widely to contemporary concerns? These are some of the
questions that this very successful and important play poses for us, challenging us to seek the
answers.)
Elisa Salo
THE GREAT ONE WHO PLAYS
The Great One who Plays is the story of a control-freak
dollhouse doll who is incapable of facing change. This plasticheaded doll has ensconced herself in her home, a perfect specimen of the genre, her only
companion a mouse that she has chased underneath the wallpaper. She contents herself
with waiting for a sign or some type of guidance from the Great One Who Plays, who no
longer manifests herself in the doll’s prospect-less life. The opportunity for a change of
direction presents itself when a stranger flies over the gates of the dollhouse in hot-air
balloon, taking out her balcony and a chunk of plastering with his arrival. The house’s facade
is trashed, but the whiff of a different type of world that the balloonist brings makes an
impression on her. The crucial step necessary for change is, however, too much of a stretch
for a doll-foot.
The woman loves life’s small, reassuring details. She doesn’t set foot outside her
dollhouse: it is her place in the world, her designated haven to watch over. In her realm,
control, order, and serene stasis reign. Surprises throw her off; they completely pull the rug out
from under her existence. The woman defends her sense of self and home as if it were the
only fortress on earth. Even the balloonist, who proves friendly, seems to threaten her identity,
and simply opening the door is grand concession already presaged by the emergency
alert’s wave-like siren and the dollhouse’s blue-spotted enamelware flying into the wall.
Could she influence her life path herself, or is everything predetermined and wholly
dependent on the grand wisdom and random whims of the One Who Plays? In what mould
have we been cast? Do we grow a plastic shell for ourselves and maintain its
impenetrability? Is our belief in a predetermined life path so powerful that, as we tread it, we
are unprepared for any sort of side-steps? How strongly do we cling to what already exists
and what we’ve already learned, even though it makes us unhappy and weak?
This mini-play is a story of loneliness, needless diminution of oneself, and a new
beginning. Of that crucial step that’s hard to take when you’re too afraid. When so much of
the past has already accumulated that you’re too burdened to see that the future is bright.
In the play, the door of opportunity is left ajar; it dangles askew from its hinges onto
the other side. The woman has one plastic foot in the door, she is at the threshold of two
worlds, but refuses to move, either to let go of the past or step into the future. She stands in
her own way; she is the barrier to her own happiness. The play is an impulse that makes the
necessary step easier to take.
Elisa Salo (b.1978) is an actor and playwright. Her previous plays include
Räjähdysvaara (”Warning: Explosives”, translated into Spanish), Naurutalo (”The House of
Laughter”) and Iik, hammaspeikko (”Eeek, the Tooth Monster”).
Jussi Moila
PARADISE
Paradise is my fourth full-length play and
narratively the most the coherent, almost
like a fairy-tale. I spent my childhood and
adolescence in Joensuu, a small eastern
Finnish city that became known for neo-Nazi violence in the ’90s. At that time, the first
asylum-seekers arrived there from Somalia and elsewhere.
The community had a paradoxical response to this phenomenon: underlying racism
subconsciously condoned the actions of the skinheads, despite the fact that public opinion
condemned them. On the other hand, Joensuu was rapidly labelled a skinhead city, even
though it did not, perhaps, differ critically from other towns of similar size.
I later heard that those who came to Joensuu included child soldiers from the civil wars in
Somalia and Angola. I began imagining what it might feel like from a child soldier’s
perspective when racism starts welling up. For instance, comments were made among
children (I know this for a fact, because I adopted these attitudes myself as a child) to the
effect of, Why don’t they fight there like the Finns did during the Winter and Continuation
Wars? The children were, of course, mimicking and exaggerating the adult attitudes. I began
thinking what listening to this kind of conversation or just living in such an environment might
feel like to a ”child veteran”, who was actually acquainted with war, not just from the stories
of old men and women.
However, I still wanted to gain a more first-hand perspective for this work, and so I applied to
work for a year at a Helsinki asylum-seekers’ centre, where I worked as a mentor for asylum
seekers who had just arrived in Finland. Although the story of this play existed before I began
my stint there, a few of the clients I met gave real faces to the characters in it.
I tried to situate the play in several countries, for instance Angola, but in the end I decided to
create a fictional country of departure for Joseph, because I did not want to stigmatise any
specific nationality or pretend that I had first-hand knowledge of any specific civil war. With
the working group, it was also essential for us that Joseph’s story link to some shared,
supranational culture, and thus Michael Jackson became, in his own fashion, a significant
part of the story through Joseph’s MJ fan-ness.
We wanted the play to be put on by a multicultural group so that racism and cultural
differences would become concrete during the process. At the same time, a fascinating
light was shed on the concept of Finnishness, as the working group included ”new Finns”,
some of whom did not even possess a permanent residence permit, let alone Finnish
citizenship.
In terms of form, the play ended up being a story carried along, at the request of the main
character, by a chorus. This also exposes the debatability of the stories of refugees. At the
beginning, the chorus says: ”This is only a story.” We hope this will make viewers think, Is the
boy telling the truth? How can we trust him? And on the other hand: If he’s lying, why does
he need to in order to be accepted in Finland?
Sirkku Peltola
Sirkku Peltola (born 1960) is one of Finland's most frequently
performed playwrights and most distinguished directors. She is the
recipient of several drama awards, and her works have been
commissioned by many Finnish theatres.
Peltola studied dramatic literature at the University of Jyväskylä.
She was an active member of the student theatre there, allowing
her to experiment and search for her own voice. After finishing her studies in 1987, Peltola
worked as a director and actress in the municipal theatres of Kuopio and Lahti. Since 2000,
she has been based at the TTT-Theatre in Tampere as both a resident director and
playwright.
Peltola's works describe the world around us with crystal clear clarity, and with all its bizarre
families, its marginalised misfits and its communities which reflect elements of social change.
Her texts embrace contemporary social issues with a unique, personal voice.
Peltola's characters often have a crazy, caricature-like quality, but are nonetheless amply
fleshed out, making them human. Her plays are thus populated by hilarious, yet deeply
tragic characters who are recognisable to us all. The dialogue is for the most part light and
airy - a rapid volley, rich in sub-text, which allows the actors plenty of room for interpretation.
Peltola's ear is attuned to the tones and rhythms of everyday speech, and her plays combine
deadpan realism with a sense of the grotesque. In her work, the poignantly funny absurdities
of everyday life are brought sharply into focus.
Peltola writes directly for the stage, with her director-self firmly seated next to her writer-self.
Even as she writes, her mind conjures up a vivid image of the tempo, the lighting, the
atmosphere, and even the actors. (TINFO / Sunklo)
Sirkku Peltola
WARMBLOODS (Lämminveriset)
Warmbloods is the third in Sirkku Peltola’s trilogy chronicling the diminishing fortunes of the
Kotala family. Once the proud owners of a farming small-hold (in the play Finnhorse), and
later housed by the council in a one-room flat (in the sequel Happy to Stand), the Kotalas
are now destitute and living in the underpass of a disused motorway flyover, along with a
motley crew of drunks and Romanian gypsies.
ACT ONE
Ninety-year-old Gram, her daughter Aili and grandson Kai have set up camp with their friend
Hamed Sahel, an unemployed Iraqi immigrant who has been living in Finland for the past
thirty years. He met Gram when he was working as a nurse at the county hospital but has
since lost his job as a result of cuts in the health service. He is still in possession of his Lada.
Life in the underpass is hard, especially as Christmas approaches and the winter gets colder.
The encampment is not without community spirit however and Kai has even struck up a
budding romance with Tiina, a single mother he has met in the bread line. The Kotalas are
also lucky enough to have relations, Ismo and Elina, living in a middle-class neighbourhood
and willing to grant them the use of their washing facilities. Admittedly the regular shower
visits are beginning to get on Elina’s nerves and she starts pressuring Ismo to put a stop to
them. She feels the Kotalas should be reported to the police for vagrancy. Meanwhile,
Gram wishes to show her gratitude and decides to repay their charitable actions by
organising a Nativity Play to be performed for Ismo and Elina on Christmas Eve. The homeless
population set about gathering props and rehearsing music for the show. Kai has invited
Tiina to join them, and his new-found romance reminds Aili of her own loneliness, as Hamed
fails to notice her unrequited feelings for him. Kai almost loses faith in women when Tiina
seems to have stood him up, but she finally arrives and rehearsals begin.
INTERVAL
ACT TWO
Kai’s sister Jaana, who lives in sheltered accommodation with her two-year-old son Tigger,
pays the camp a visit. She has brought her family Christmas presents, but is clearly ashamed
of their poverty-stricken circumstances and is afraid of getting drawn into their fate. She
announces she has other plans for Christmas and leaves. As the Kotalas prepare for their
Nativity Play, a smartly dressed gentleman, Asko Vähälä, approaches carrying a briefcase.
They suspect him of being a bailiff, but they discover he is the engineer who designed the
abandoned motorway. When the factories moved away and traffic dwindled, the project
ran out of financial backing. Asko lost his job, home, family and public respect. Now
bankrupt, he was planning to hang himself from the flyover, but he is distracted by the
strange group of underpass inhabitants and their gentle optimism. He reveals singing is a
hobby and they enlist him as choirmaster for their performance.
Ismo and the reluctant Elina arrive to watch the Nativity play. The play is such a success that
it even makes an impression on the hard-hearted Elina, who is moved to tears. Gram is
forced to interrupt her performance in order to answer a call of nature, and while she is still in
the woods, the police arrive. Elina is suspected of betrayal, but Jaana arrives and admits it
was she who informed the police. She was concerned for the family’s welfare as
temperatures fall below zero. After slight difficulty with their vehicle, the police haul
everyone down to the station to make a statement. Meanwhile Gram emerges from the
woods. Like the old man Firs in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, Gram has been left behind and
forgotten. She sits on the sofa and dies, as moments from her past life flash before her.
Gram’s soul goes up to heaven, a place where horses run free in open prairies. Jaana, the
first to be released by the police, arrives at the camp only too late, to find Gram passed
away on the wooden sofa.