New Plays from Finland
Antti Hietala
Antti Hietala (born 1958) is a Helsinki-based playwright and director who is currently working as the main director and head ensemble playwright and director at Q-Theatre. He has been involved with Q-theatre, one of Finland’s most important independent theatre groups, since its founding in 2012. Hietala writes his own plays in addition to adapting authors such as Dostoyevsky and Döblin to the stage as well as classics like Shakespeare and Chekhov.
Hietala’s own play, Lovely People (Ihanat Ihmiset) received the Lea Award for best Finnish play of 2014. His most recent play, Mount Everest (2018), deals with unconditional love in the face of depression. Some of the themes dealt with in his plays include violence, sexuality, and religion. In his works history and the present coexist and work together to reveal to the viewers the inner workings of the human mind. Hietala's theatrical language is deceptively simple, but carefully thought out.