Purge

Wednesday, 22 February 2012 - Saturday, 24 March 2012
Times : 15:00 - 17:20 20:00 - 22:20

Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, Hackney, E8 3DL

How Much: £16.00 (Tickets) , £12.00 (Concessions)

Sofi Oksanen's Purge looks at the legacy that Soviet occupation left in Estonia. In director Elgiva Field's production of the play (translated by Eva Buchwald) more prominent is the legacy of violence left in women after being abused by men. The story follows Aliide (Ilona Linthwaite) an old woman living alone in the countryside circa 1990 when she stumbles across Zara, a prostitute on the run from her abusive pimp.

Field wisely forgoes the generic mittel-European accents you might expect from the cast, allowing this dystopia to take on a fluidity that hints at the Soviet brand of occupation suffered by much of eastern Europe for so long. The set design by Rosemary Flegg encourages this lack of specificity which continues to place Estonia in a greater whole but allows us to understand the vast differences between that sub-continent and the West.

Rebecca Todd as a young Aliide, desperately playing mind games to keep herself safe, makes a frighteningly resilient picture of human psychological endurance and ultimately carries this production. Elicia Daly imbues Zara with a vulnerability that endears us to her but makes us question her violent outbursts later as the play becomes increasingly violent in the - much stronger - second half which will leave you suitably disturbed.

Naima Khan

 

Click here to read Authenticity and what translators think about.