30.05.2024
Seagulls to make their voices heard in Poland and Czech Republic
Leading Finnish playwright Pipsa Lonka’s sky every day is set to debut in Prague later this year, with a Polish print edition launching in Kraków in June.
Pipsa Lonka’s sky every day shows us humans and seagulls living side by side, both species resting, eating and spending time on the seaside, where the humans have landed for their holidays. Voice is given to both birds and humans, though their communication, whether between species or between individuals, tends inevitably to falter. A Polish print edition of Lonka’s play is due to launch in Kraków in June, with a Czech stage production to follow later in the year.
The play’s Polish translation by Marta Orczykowska, titled cztery dni bliskości, is based on an English translation by Kristian London. It will be published by ADiT, a Warsaw-based theatre agency, supported by a TINFO translation grant. The launch event will be taking place in the Polish city on 3 June, and the title will thereafter be widely available in local online bookstores.
Rehearsals for the Czech stage production are to kick off shortly in Prague, with an opening night set for December of this year at Venuše ve Švehlovce, a contemporary art space in the city. It will be produced by Divadlo Láska. The play has been translated into Czech by Otto Kauppinen, who also serves as dramaturge in the production. Taking the helm as director is Lit Moon Theatre’s artistic director John Blondell. The Czech translation has also been supported by a Ministry of Education and Culture-funded grant from TINFO which still remained available in 2023.
On the international scene, the book launch and stage production were preceded by a staged reading of Birgita Bonde Hansen’s Danish translation at the Pink Pavilion festival in Copenhagen in spring 2021. A further staged reading, based on a Swedish translation by Sofia Aminoff, was livestreamed from the Riksteatern theatre in the Swedish capital at the height of the Covid pandemic in a production organised by the Finnish Institute in Stockholm.
The play’s Finnish premiere on 13 September 2023 was a collaboration between the W A U H A U S collective and the & Theatre in Espoo. Further dates have recently been announced, starting in January 2025.
TINFO / Sari Havukainen 29.5.2024
A deep dive into Lonka’s play is offered by Elsi Hyttinen in Humans and Seagulls, paused featured in Squirreling. Human-Animal Studies in the Northern European Region, a collection of essays published as part of Södertörn University’s publication series in 2022.