hotINK 2010 International Festival of Play Reading presents a staged reading of PURGE, by Finnish-Estonian author Sofi Oksanen (translated by Ewa Buchwald) on Sunday, January 24, 7:00 PM at Tisch School of the Arts in New York City.
Purge opens a window on a remote area of newly independent Estonia in 1992. Aliide, who lives alone in a farm house on the Finnish-Estonian border, discovers a young woman named Zara in her yard. Through the two characters, Oksanen deals with the horrors experienced by the women of Soviet Estonia.
The essence of the story is women’s resistance, and the blurring of good and evil that is its consequence. Directed by Sharon Fogarty.
With her debut novel Stalinin lehmät (Stalin’s Cows, 2003), Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen (b. 1977) was catapulted into the elite of young Finnish literary authors. Her original and political writing, at once revolting and sublimely poetical, touched a pain spot in the public debate and became an eye-opener for society. The novel rendered her a nomination for the Runeberg Award (Runeberg-priset) 2004 and was followed by her second acclaimed novel Baby Jane in 2005. Currently, Oksanen studies dramaturgy at the prestigious Theater Academy in Helsinki, and her first original play Puhdistus (Purge) opened in at the Finnish National Theater in February 2007 and novel version of Purge in 2008. Like her previous writing, it revolves around ideas of power, nationality, sexuality and estrangement. Oksanen is a master of style and storytelling with an agenda: she believes art can change the world.
Now in its ninth year, hotINK is an annual, international festival of play readings, presented by the Department of Drama, that brings together playwrights from around the world with distinguished actors and directors from the New York theatre, as well as students, alumni and faculty from the Tisch School of the Arts.
Sunday, January 24, 7 PM
Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway at Waverly Place, NY, NY
For reservations, please visit www.hotink.org
