ABSTRACT
The Finnish National Theatre’s few productions desired to change society, but the programming reflected the global politics of the time. In the 1970s, many of the productions hinted at the Vietnam War issue and displayed anti-war sentiments. The radicalism associated with the 1960s generation started to die down as the 1970s changed into the 1980s, and intergenerational tensions became a source of dramatic exploration instead. In the 1990s the Finnish National Theatre also participated in conversations about the environmental threat. The most direct and impressive anti-war play staged at the National was Johnny Johnson by Paul Green and Kurt Weill on the Main Stage in 1975. The Theatre had staged plays that reflected contemporary social problems throughout the 1970, but these thematic connections were publicly acknowledged and deemed robust enough later. A shift happened with the staging of Albert Camus’s Caligula in 1980, the first clear directorial experiment that broke free from the text’s prevailing mode by emphasising the importance of (Willensauna) performance space. Pentti Holapa’s play Adieu! in 1991 was staged amid the global ozone threat. The play’s other themes were political power struggles, the conversations about European integration, and AIDS.
