FOR SHEER LOVE OF ME

Original title: 
RAKKAUDESTA
Agegroup: 
Adults
Cast: 
1m, 3f

The Northcliff family is slowly falling apart in their large apartment in a wealthy neighbourhood. Tina, an interior decorator, and Edward, a TV psychologist, are growing apart, and Tina's frustrations break out in sudden mood swings and emotional outbursts. Edward withdraws into work and becomes estranged from his family. Their ten-year-old daughter, Sylvia (named after Tina's favourite poet, Sylvia Plath), becomes increasingly lonely and isolated, both at school and at home. All these suppressed negative feelings come to the surface with the arrival of a new neighbour, the twenty-five-year old Sally Peak, onto whom the whole family begin piling their hopes and desperation, leading to an inevitable collision. This play is a subtle, perceptive, compassionate and at times humorous examination of the processes of alienation and estrangement in a family. Melancholy in tone, it nevertheless shows that it is possible to break free from one's shackles and start again. In 2006, Krogerus won the Finnish Critics' Association Award, given to a young artist who has broken new ground, for this play. The play has been staged all over the world.