LähinaapuriThe Nearby Neighbour
Markus Leikola's play takes the viewer to a prison in Russia and asks: how can one be crazy in a society that is already crazy itself? In a concrete-walled cell, two characters, the Guard and the Madman, measure each other against each other, against the continuum of Russianness, crime and punishment, in ways that are impossible to reach. And somewhere behind the wall is the one they are trying to influence: a prisoner whose name must not be mentioned. Neighbour, on the other hand, is also a Russian foreign policy term that refers to neighbours – on a state level, for example, Ukraine and Estonia – that are not quite foreign countries, which is why they are allowed to be treated as if they were actually one's own.
"Although The Nearby Neighbour comments directly and ambiguously on contemporary Russia, it expands metaphorically to explore the sadistic randomness of totalitarianism more broadly." Tuomas Rantanen, Voima