Kruusvall’s final play gets its first staging under Johan Elm

Jaan Kruusvall’s previously un staged play Life of the Desert Fox will premiere on Friday in the small hall of Südalinna Theatre, ERR reports. Johan Elm directs, with Elmo Nüganen in the lead role.

Written in 2006, the play was Kruusvall’s final drama. It centres on a General who has devoted his life to duty and high ideals but has grown distant from those closest to him. He gets the chance to look at his life from the outside and see it in a different light.

Elm said the play raises questions that everyone faces at some point, including whether they have lived well and what their life has been worth. He wants to convey the General’s existential journey and the chance to consider the meaning of his life and relationships.

Elm said he offered the lead role to Nüganen after hearing him speak about love in an interview. The director felt Nüganen had experienced some of the same existential challenges as the General.

Although the play ends pessimistically, Elm has sought to give greater space to hope and the possibility that a person can change for love. He said the necessity of love became the thread holding the General’s story together.

Eugen Tamberg is the production’s designer, Anton Andrejuk its lighting designer and Kirill Havanski its composer. Performances will be in Russian with simultaneous translation into Estonian.