Megans Geschichte (Meganin tarina)

Winner of the 2010 Lea Award for the best Finnish play of the year. Tuomas Timonen’s hauntingly topical play follows the story of a 13 year old girl named Megan who is subjected to bullying on social media websites. This causes her great distress and ultimately leads her to commit suicide. The play is based on real events. At its core, Megan’s Story is a play about a family, a community and the everyday human helplessness when one is trying to combine reality with one’s hopes and wishes. The play’s characters are neither good nor evil, but recognisable, annoying, understandable and real. Why our basic human qualities are not so well transmitted online is one of the play’s central questions. Megan’s Story is also a story about injustice, but it does not lecture, only shows, gives options and raises questions. In describing the play, the jury of the 2010 Lea Award called it “so solid and strong that it resembles a poem. This poetry is manifested not so much linguistically but rather in how the different scenes of the play are connected to one another, much like fierce verses in a poem. The play is dense and tension filled, and in its clarity beautiful and controlled. Timonen writes in a pure, carefully considered and skilfully distanced manner but the play nevertheless remains extremely moving. The sorrow and rage that the play awakens will not be forgotten for a long time.”