Rakastavaisten kuoro

A couple at home at night. “I can’t breathe”, says the woman. “She can’t breathe”, the man repeats. They rush to the hospital. Harrowing moments ensue: she in intensive care, he despairing and uncertain in the waiting room. Eventually, life resumes, but the lovers’ joint journey is forever altered.

Rakastavaisten kuoro (Lovers’ Chorus) captivates from the very start. Written and directed by Portuguese Tiago Rodrigues, it transports the audience into the core of a relationship between two people. It is a choral play, a lyrical narrative, where, in two voices, a couple recounts the other’s brush with death. Their versions, told side by side, are not quite the same. The lives and memories of two individuals are monologues that only occasionally transform into dialogue, coming together and pulling apart. The play celebrates love, vitality, and the exceptionally strong bond between two people in a life-or-death situation.

Tiago Rodrigues directs the work in Espoo with &’s Artistic Director Jussi Sorjanen as his assistant director. On stage, the stunning Alma Pöysti and Elmer Bäck are a revelation.

The production of Rakastavaisten kuoro at & is the fourth time Rodrigues directs this play. First staged in Portugal in 2007 as Coro Dos Amantes, the work has since been performed in France (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, 2021), in Greece (Onassis Stegi, 2024), and in Spain in Catalan (Teatre Lliure, 2025).