Final year students of the theatre school are performing 'The way things are' in Tallinn. The piece comprises monologues, scenes, songs and dances. The monologues were written by a journalist, a writer, the director and the students. The production has elicited a lively response. It has been both praised and damned. So how are things in the Republic of Estonia after ten years of independence?

Five young men enter the stage, one of them carrying a guitar. Four of them proceed to hoist two giant Estonian flags. The fifth scrutinises the audience and from the proscenium starts to play the Estonian anthem on the guitar. The anthem played on the guitar sounds unfamiliar, but the anthem is nevertheless still the anthem. People hesitatingly stand, seeking glances of support from one another. Ten years ago no one would have hesitated. After this they talk about their lives.

There's one rich young bird who wants to buy herself a new car.

Another woman, retrenched from work, whose drunk husband fell asleep on the railway tracks and was run over by a train, and who now feeds her two children with wood sorrel, rowan berries and bread baked from sawdust. She feels guilty when, from time to time, without the children knowing, she rips pages from books left from days past and eats them like a sweet delicacy. To solve the problem of footwear she ties old saucepans to her children's feet and she herself wears plastic slippers retrieved from the polyclinic rubbish bin.

stills from the performance. photos by ene-liis semper.

And the woman on a low wage, who keeps a record of her income and all her expenses and maintains a very tight family budget - so tight that the ten crown ticket for the puppet theatre that visited the kindergarten and the twenty crown increase in the cost of rubbish removal breaks the bank.

A church minister, who has become well off as a result of the worries of his congregation and the houses that have been restored to his wife and who has completely forfeited his mission as a shepherd of souls, is surprised when he hears people complaining of stress because he himself, for some reason, has always received help from God.

A journalist, who as a result of reader's letters saturated with anger, indignation and offence against the media, becomes agitated and hysterically falls into the same trap reviling the readers and calling them pricks.

A man from an in-service training firm who, relying on cheap mass psychology and shabby methods and slogans, instructs people how to achieve power over others.

An antagonistic and soulless man, full of self-importance - with three children, each with a different mother - who is trying to sell his film scenario to America, and whose greatest concern is where he can get the money to pay his telephone bill so he can continue his negotiations with America, and all because after becoming angry over a 2000 crown restaurant bill he went and lost 10 000 crowns in the casino.

A theatre school student and his school friend who has become a rich businessman and as someone far from the world of culture, considers his actor friend a fool, and yet someone he can employ for a small fee to amuse people at parties.

An eccentric bachelor who plays the lottery each week and whose greatest dream is to win a little money, even 100 crowns, so he can buy himself a book.

A Russian woman who can recite the Estonian anthem by heart, and in order to qualify as an Estonian citizen is capable of answering, with embarrassing preciseness, embarrassingly stupid and mean spirited questions like the ingredients of the national food, kama. The young woman answers promptly but humbly to all the questions, presented aggressively by her inquisitors. Among these questions her most painfully cutting answer is that: no one can be discriminated against because of nationality, race or skin colour.

All the monologues waver between comedy and tragedy. The message is heightened by satire. From time to time the students sit among the audience, identifying with them and then even taking part in the play as members of the audience. Suddenly someone discovers a 'homo' in the hall (played by one of the students). He is dragged on to the stage and taunted with merciless intolerance. Someone announces that 'Negroes' have also been seen.

The student's own punk band plays between scenes with songs of their own creation. Because of the amplification the words are difficult to make out, but from a few of the lines and the general anarchic sounds of youth, the need to randomly spew forth angst is clear.

The piece ends with dance, an unending dance that is repeated many times. During the dance one student asks the old question, which is asked in every conceivable context - "Is this the Estonia we wanted?" - and answers - "I didn't want this." The music begins to play again, the young people sing along to the words, take off a few clothes and the dance continues. Then another student announces - "I don't like this dance, I don't like this kind of theatre, I don't like this life." The music starts up again, the young people sing along, peel off yet more clothes and the dance goes on. The music starts up once again, the young people strip down to their underwear and the dance goes on. And so on and so on, because the dance goes on.

This is the kind of work it is, retold in the manner of a kitchen maid, just as we were instructed at theatre school to retell the story Hamlet. I went to see the performance in the way that one sometimes goes to the theatre. I just went, without any expectations. It was the premier performance - no one had seen it before. I immediately got a lump in my throat when the woman retrenched from work and the woman whose weekly budget did not extend to the ten crown puppet theatre ticket began to tell their stories. The lump in my throat increased as a result of the audience's reaction. The audience roared with laughter. In a sense it was a joke because the lines really were funny. Reality had been given a twist, softening the seriousness of the message. Generally audiences' reactions don't bother me, they just help the actors to completely maintain their role on stage. But now it suddenly bothered me. It even shocked me. I couldn't place myself. Was I sitting among my own people or not? All kinds of difficult times came to mind. The performances touched me. All at once I wanted to see this performance somewhere else, not Tallinn, but somewhere else in Estonia, in another town or in the country and then see the audience's reaction.

At the same time that this play was first being performed, young actors were actively seeking work opportunities in Estonian theatres. There were those with so many offers that they became confused, like a child on Christmas Eve who doesn't know which present to open first, and then there were those had to go from theatre to theatre offering themselves and who had to, time and again, smile cheerily when Father Christmas still did not come. Having seen all this from the sidelines of the theatre school, the final dance was given an additionally pointed dimension.

Around the same time, in the cinema, I saw the scandalous Esto TV's film, Choose Order, where the ruling Res Publica's election campaign slogan is ridiculed and attempts are made to apply it word for word. Again I felt bad, just as I had in the theatre. I felt embarrassed for Res Publica, embarrassed for my compatriots and embarrassed for those who had made the film (even though, in part, the film is an effective political caricature). It seemed to me that the makers did not have any hidden ideals. It was just a joke. Among other things, for the first time I saw how the Singing Revolution was being laughed at. Again I thought that I'd like to see this film outside Tallinn. And it would be interesting to know whether the Finns, na•ve and vulnerable in their honesty in the eyes of the arrogant Estonians, look at Kaurismäki differently in Helsinki to the way he is viewed in small Finnish towns.

To conclude, a line which caused me to burst out laughing, when I heard it, but which I often think about. A talented musician who was moving from Tallinn to Tartu said he was 'moving to Estonia'.

Anu Lamp (1958), actress, translator and lecturer. Repeatedly won the annual best actress award in Estonia, in addition numerous other awards, including for her translation work. Works at the Tallinn City Theatre and Drama School at the Estonian Academy of Music.