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Play inspired by research project Recollect / Reconnect coming to Tampere

Published on 5.10.2021
Tampere University
Advisory board and Dollardaddy Theatre company warming up
The play ‘KELET/EAST’ is coming to Tampere on the 28-29th of October 2021! The play explores family life drawing on childhood memories of people living in socialist and post-socialist countries and those who have visited the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

The play ‘KELET/EAST’ is coming to Tampere on the 28-29th of October 2021! The play explores family life drawing on childhood memories of people living in socialist and post-socialist countries and those who have visited the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

Performed by Dollardaddy’s theater group, the play was inspired by the research project Recollect / Reconnect funded by the Kone Foundation and lead by Prof Zsuzsa Millei and A/Prof Nelli Piattoeva from the Faculty of Education at Tampere University, in cooperation with their colleague Professor Iveta Silova from Arizona State University, USA.

“The play was an overwhelming success in Budapest, Hungary last autumn and received outstanding reviews this summer after the performance in the most prestigious theatre festival in Szeged. We are pleased to host the play in Tampere and see how a Finnish audience would receive it, since Finland had a diplomatic role between the two superpowers during the Cold War and many adults today have vivid childhood memories of that period” - says Millei.

The play tells the story of Roland who won the 1986 Talent Show in Hungary for his clown performance and received a much coveted award – a trip to communist Vietnam. The first part of the play recalls some news and popular TV programs from socialist Hungary and two Talent Show performances. The scenes frequently shift times and spaces between socialist Hungary and contemporary Thailand where Roland lives at present. The second part of the play is a reunion of Roland’s family in Thailand, which slowly unfolds their shared past and present filled with unresolved tensions and provocations, providing some insights into the complex conditions of post-socialist family life.

The play director Tamás Ördög and dramaturg Bence Bíró participated in the research project themselves, working with academics and artists to collectively produce memory stories. When creating the script, they invited the actors to bring their own memories of childhood into the play.

“Childhood memories in this way also served as a bridge between academic research and the arts creating dialogues among people divided by multiple borders – geopolitical, economic, generational and cultural – not only in the past but also today” – explains Silova.

“Sharing memories has a domino effect: we hear one, we tell one. We hope the play will bring up memories in the audience and incite viewers to explore points of connections across real and imagined borders then and now” – adds Piattoeva.

See more about the play and purchase tickets by following this link: https://ttt-teatteri.fi/program/dollardaddys-east/