A psychological treatise on guilt and fear
Ten people unknown to each other are invited to the island. When they arrive, they find themselves the only visitors and completely isolated from the rest of the world.
Soon after arriving on the island, a message echoes from the record accusing each guest of murder. Then they start killing them one by one.
As more and more guests lose their lives, those who remain realize that the murderer is one of them and no one is safe.
“This is an excellent mystery of a closed space, where the suspense is maintained until the end. That’s how many times the play manages to surprise the audience,” says director Sakari Hokkanen.
Evil Gets Its RewardAgatha Christie dramatised her 1939 novel And Then There Were None, into a play itself, which premiered in 1943.
Hokkanen points out that the text was written before the Great War, when there were many kinds of threatening tensions in the air, just like now. In 85 years, nothing has changed in the fact that people still commit ruthless acts, and there may not be any power that would hold them accountable for them.
“Fiction can act as a safety valve here,” Hokkanen says. In the play, all the guests are more or less guilty of negligent homicide, for which they have not been held responsible. On the island, they are forced to face their past.
“In addition to having a compelling and gripping thriller plot, the play is a psychological study of guilt and fear,” Hokkanen says.
From the point of view of acting, he finds it interesting to see all the strategies that the characters use to cover up their guilt in order to convince each other and especially themselves.
“Cognitive dissonance is a huge force, because a person cannot bear to live with the disgusting truth about themselves, so they end up telling a story about themselves that is not true in one way or another,” Hokkanen explains.
However, there is a breaking point in all the characters, where the character is confronted with themselves and their actions.
Murders in front of the eyes of the audience
Hokkanen thinks that the setting of the play is fascinating in its tormenting cruelty.
Unlike the usual suspense drama in which a sovereign private detective arrives at the scene of a murder to solve a crime, here – as the name suggests – no one may make it off the island alive.
“You have to be careful on the level of details here, because the guests are murdered in front of the viewers. If you do it half-heartedly, the creepiness suffers,” Hokkanen says.
A nursery rhyme on the villa’s painting reveals how the next victim will die.
Ten little soldier boys went to the field together,
but one choked on food, there are nine left.Ninelittle soldier boys spent an evening so merry,
but when the morning comes, you only open your eyes at eight. Eight little soldier boys set out in search of their fortune,
When one stayed on that path, the group was reduced to seven.
The aim is to build the whole in such a way that it enables a laboratory-like environment in which the characters struggle like laboratory animal rats in a pinch.
“Hopefully, the viewer will wonder who was able to commit the murder and where on earth in between. Here you can experience a chilling fear and be frightened, knowing that you are safe.”
Text Ida Henritius