Piibe Theatre turns family memory into a bridge across time

Piibe Theatre’s documentary drama Let Me Listen brings the wartime memories of twin sisters Aino Paju and Vaike Tihase to the stage, with mother and daughter meeting across generations. ERR theatre reviewer Pille-Riin Purje writes that the production’s impact is strengthened by the casting of Elina Reinold alongside her daughter Emma Lotta Kiviberg.

Directed and written by Arlet Palmiste, Let Me Listen is based on the life stories of Paju and Tihase and draws on books by Paju’s daughter, Imbi Paju. The play premiered on July 16 at the Kuremaa theatre barn in Jõgevamaa.

The production is in a thoughtful dialogue with Piibe Theatre’s previous summer play, The Last Forest Brother, which portrayed the life of freedom fighter Ruuben Lambur. That stage story continues here through a new account of the past.

Music and songs shape the rhythm of the performance. Kiviberg, who also designed the music, leads the ensemble performing on stage. The young musicians bring the production lively energy and vitality, while Kiviberg plays the daughter as spirited and hopeful, offering her mother a supportive partner in speech, music and song.

Riina Vanhanen’s set features authentic photographs on the stone wall of the Kukenoosi barn. Reinold repeatedly refers to the images as she recalls the past. A window is also central to the stage space. At the beginning, when the daughter arrives amid the excitement of the night singing festivals in 1988, the mother closes it for fear that someone might hear them. The fear returns several times before the moment when the mother opens the window herself.

A white and black cloth stands out against the window. In Jaanus Tüli’s lighting design, it suggests a bluish flash, evoking the blue, black and white past that becomes the present again. The hands of a clock on the wall move backwards, a detail Purje says she noticed only after fellow audience members pointed it out. Marie Under’s poem Christmas Greeting 1941 is one of the production’s key texts, linking the clock to the line: I am like a rower moving backwards.

As the mother, Reinold delivers painful memories of the Second World War and a prison camp in Siberia. Her performance is stark but not detached. She remains fully immersed in the memories, speaking Under’s words about moments heavy as stone. Her monologues are marked by tense pauses and quiet emotion, giving the audience time to absorb them.

The mood gradually becomes more cheerful in the second act. Finnish Mehukatti is introduced as a sign of the era, and tongues loosen as it is mixed with vodka. The jokes also carry the marks of their time, including references to Chapayev and Petka, whose names may be unfamiliar to young people today.

The title Let Me Listen underlines the importance of passing memories on. Palmiste’s production speaks both to the mother’s generation and the daughter’s peers, and is best seen by several generations together. In a fragile present, the bridge to the past is becoming increasingly important.