Note: No longer in repertoire!

Due to the uncertainty of the coronavirus situation, Helsinki City Theatre is cancelling all performances for the spring 2021 season.

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Red Orphans touchingly deals with a deep national trauma and a silenced period in Finnish history after the Civil War. The nation was divided, and there were almost 25,000 Red orphans in Finland after the war. Children ended up in court and prison camps. Under the leadership of the state elite, the idea was born to move the children of the Reds to ideologically better growing conditions in Ostrobothnia, away from the cities and from bad working-class mothers. There was a shortage of everything, but applying for poor relief meant losing both the right to vote and children.

Red Orphans tells the story of a family living in the Second Line – the father has died in the aftermath of the war, and the mother is forced to give up her children because there is not enough food for them. The play follows the lives of a mother and children in Helsinki and in foster families in Ostrobothnia. It is a touching depiction of motherly love, hope and
forgiveness – and to give a voice to those who were completely innocent of the events around them.

The performance rights are supervised by Anneli Kanto and Lauri Maijala.