Otso Kautto

I graduated as a theatre director in 1987, since which I’ve worked as a translator, playwright and director with several theatres throughout the country. For the past 15 years I have been a regular visiting contributor to The Finnish National Theatre, and have led the Quo Vadis theatre group founded by Markku Hoikkala and I in 1985. In recent years my life has been dominated by touring the world with Quo Vadis and our performance arena, a yurt built by Markku Hoikkala.

My debut novel Matka Mundakaan (Journey to Mundaka) was published in 2003, and since that I’ve concentrated on writing drama.

I’ll have three projects underway while at the Saari Residence. I’m doing a Finnish translation of Eugène Ionesco’s 1949 play La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Soprano) for Espoo Theatre. I’m also co-writing, with Markku Hoikkala, a political-poetical play entitled Lastentarha (Playschool) for the Quo Vadis theatre group’s autumn programme. Finally, I’ll work on a novel about fathers and daughters, provisionally entitled Tyttö Tuli! (It’s a Girl!).

The novel is based on a play of mine by the same title that first showed at the Finnish National Theatre in 2009. Many of the scenes in the play read so well that I decided to see how well the drama would work when transformed into prose. As with the play, the novel explores the relationship between a father and his daughter, and takes place in a car en route to someplace from home. Since they’re temporarily removed from the surrounding world, there’s nothing else to do on the journey than chat. The father’s having to keep his eyes on the road also makes it easier to say things that are usually left unsaid, and indeed this theme of being able to articulate what is normally avoided is emerging as a major theme of the book.

The intense calm of the environment at the Saari Residence and the opportunity to either be alone with one’s thoughts, or to occasionally share thoughts with the other residents is ideal for me.