GEP

Posted: May 14th, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: cool, Estonia, theatre | No Comments »

I have just arrived back from seeing the acclaimed play GEP at NO99 theatre. It was a masterpiece.

The premise is simple: Estonians as a nation are going to die out unless radical measures are undertaken. 7 Estonian men form a club called GEP with the simple intent to raise the birth rate by having as many babies with as many Estonian women as possible. It might be a great premise for a slapstick type of thing, but this is not what NO99 is about: instead it is a reflection and an observation of the issues faced by men and women in Estonia, and the underlying confusion about the changing nature of concept of a nation. 

The final provided an interesting debate between the cosmopolitan and the national points-of-view (in the scene where two club members try to sell the idea to businessmen for funding). I think that NO99 has done a remarkable thing with the play: they have provided social commentary and provoked thought about what it means to be Estonian, why and if we need to be Estonian and so on. 

It was never boring or uninteresting, it was serious when it needed to be serious, but at the same time provided a lot of laughs (especially at the start of the play when the twisted plot emerged).