A story about the small, the big and the final questions
Juta is your
ordinary 10-year-old girl. Only last year she still had a brother with whom she
got along very well. Juta even knows that her mom and dad named her brother
after a hero from a children’s book called Vahtramäe’s Emil. This Emil
lives in his book and is actually a fictional character. Juta’s brother Emil
was real, but he is not any more because he died last year. And after that the
world turned really strange. Juta has many questions but quite often his father
has no idea how to answer them. He does not even know whether the fish sleep.
And so Juta goes after the answers herself. Because she has generally started
to notice that grown-ups do not know
that many things and actually seem to deal with some things in a more worse way
than she herself.
German playwright Jens Raschke (born in 1970) has worked as a dramaturg in many German theatres, mainly focusing on youth and children’s plays. He has also been one of the organisers of Kiel’s mono drama festival Thespis since 2003. Two worlds get joined in his play „Do fish sleep?” - alone, Juta steps in front of the audience and tries to give meaning to life’s difficult and grim yet inevitable aspects. Raschke has been praised for his bravery for writing a story without tear jerking or unnecessary embellishments on a topic that is almost a taboo subject also for the young audience. Juta is young but her sincere worldview is occasionally surprisingly perceptive.
Premiere: 30th of January 2018 in National Library Theatre Hall.
The performance is in one act and runs for 1 hour and 5 minutes
Ticket sales for „Do fish sleep?” support the cancer treatment foundation „The Gift of Life”. From every ticket purchased, a euro gets donated to the fund.
Target group: the production is suitable for middle and high school students, not to mention the grown-ups
NB! Latecomers are not allowed to enter and the ticket money will not be refunded!
Author: | Jens Raschke |
Translator: | Eili Heinmets |
Director: | Aare Toikka |
Set designer: | Illimar Vihmar |
Lighting designer: | Sander Põllu |
Sound designer: | Veiko Tubin |
Cast: | Liisa Saaremäel (Estonian Drama Theatre) |
Photographer: | Siim Vahur |