Kirill Havanski stages an escape from an overloaded world

A new play by director Kirill Havanski has opened at Tartu New Theatre, portraying people at a dead end who are searching for somewhere to escape everyday life, ERR reports.

Where do I go when there is nowhere left to go? follows characters who feel isolated and want to flee to an imagined tunnel where worries and rules cannot reach them, and they do not have to take a position on everything happening in society.

“The world feels very sparse right now,” Havanski said. He imagined a space for people who feel there is too much noise, too much information and too many things happening. In what he called a “semi-apocalyptic time”, the space offers them comfort, he said.

The characters are abstractions of the actors’ inner worlds. Actor Germo Toonikus said his character is also lost in an overload of information and unsure which way to turn. “He is built above all from me, and is searching for the truth, as well as the courage to make that truth acceptable to himself,” Toonikus said.

Havanski said his personal sense of an increasingly dystopian world inspired the production. Politics has become a performance, technological development creates uncertainty, and it is difficult to withdraw from social media, he said.

Although social media encourages individualism and people are constantly connected, Havanski said, many still feel lonely. The play reflects how isolated people have become and aims to encourage them to notice one another and face the noise more bravely.