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Illusionist prizeNordic Drama AwardNewsEvery second year the Nordic Drama Award is given to the best Nordic play of the past two years. The board of the Nordic Theatre Union decided upon the winner based upon recommendations of all Nordic countries. The Nordic Drama Award is presented during the Nordic Theatre Days, this year in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 28th July to 4th August.
This year the winner of DKR 50.000 award is Kari Hotakainen’s Border Crossings (Punahukka, translated by Steve and Marja Wilmer). Punahukka was first premiered at the Kom Theatre, Helsinki, in September 2005. It is an extremely funny comedy, despite its serious themes of mercy, faith and lack of faith.
The Nordic jury defines the winner as follows:
Hotakainen seems to be a serious author with important tidings, which you really like to prize although a suspicion gnaws: namely whether they are the truth of the world?
Maybe Hotakainen´s lines are like Hotakainen’s opinions: They aim at lots of rabbits running in different directions. Hotakainen has got his readers through his diction and his lines – and with these weapons he now attacks the theatre audience. He thrives in the marginal and with ordinary people's delusions in a world that looks different.
Border Crossings is a cornucopia of themes as the relativity of ethics, the easiness of being evil to others and the difficulty of being good. Or Finland’s history after the Soviet-empire: When the tyranny that justifies everything is gone, all people ought to grow up – and it is neither funny nor simple. Even if the play has a happy ending, the audience is nevertheless left with a double-barrelled feeling, which is typical for Hotakainen’s authorship.
Hotakainen’s previous play, the children's’ musical Hukassa on hyvä paikka (Lost is a good place to be) has been translated into German. Punahukka has been translated into Swedish. Also English and Danish translations will be available soon.