Nuutrum play finds Vargamäe eternity in supporting characters

ERR published a review of Nuutrum’s new production Vargamäe Valvur, which explores the world of A. H. Tammsaare’s novel Truth and Justice through memories, death and the enduring role of its supporting characters.

Written by Urmas Lennuk and directed by Vallo Kirs, the play is based on the first part of Tammsaare’s novel, whose first publication reaches its centenary this year. It premiered on July 24 in the threshing room of the A. H. Tammsaare Museum at Vargamäe.

The production stars Ülle Lichtfeldt, Rait Õunapuu, Jane Napp and Märten Matsu. Annika Lindemann designed the set, Sander Aleks Paavo the lighting and Peeter Konovalov the sound.

Sauna Madis’s death

Vargamäe Valvur opens with the sudden death of Sauna Madis, an unexpected event that can initially leave the audience disoriented. In Tammsaare’s novel, Madis is still alive when he speaks at length to Liisi, the daughter of Mäe Andres, who has taken refuge in the sauna from her father’s anger while carrying Oru Joosep’s child.

Madis tells Liisi that she need neither fear nor love him. When he eventually becomes soil again, he says, that soil should be loved, even if it lies beneath the door of a sauna.

The reviewer describes trying at first to find a logical place for the play within the events of the novel. Madis appears to have died too early, before Mari and Juss marry and before Krõõt gives birth to the son who will take his mother’s life.

Gradually, however, the sound world created by Peeter Konovalov changes the experience. Its mysterious resonance begins to feel gentler than distant bells, and the production’s sense of eternity becomes clearer in the second act. The reviewer compares it to seeing something lived through once again in a dream, or opening a much-read book as if for the first time.

Memories held by supporting characters

The performance also evokes earlier theatre experiences at the Vargamäe threshing room, including Urmas Lennuk’s Vargamäe Varjus and Vallo Kirs’s Vanad ja Noored, based on Tammsaare’s stories. The reviewer links the productions through their sensitive atmosphere of remembrance.

In the programme, Lennuk writes that Vargamäe’s sauna woman has previously been noticed and interpreted, but that he and Kirs reached the theme of eternity during the new production’s development. They concluded that Vargamäe’s eternity is often kept alive by its supporting characters.

Nuutrum’s programme lists all of the company’s productions since 2020, making Vargamäe Valvur its twentieth premiere.