Tiina spends her childhood in post-war Tartu. The ruins of the Church of St. Paul and of the Vanemuine Theatre building are still blackened in the city. Only the house of the Fraternitas Estica students’ association stands beside Tiina’s home as something that transcends time. People try to rebuild their lives on the debris of the devastation of war and passion. Tiina tries to understand what actually happened in her family in that oppressive era of silence.
This is a delicate story full of love, passion, the pain of loss, and emptiness. Is it possible to become more skilful in playing cards, or is everything still only chance and fate? Does love spring up in spite of burned bridges and lives?
Kai Aareleid’s Burning Cities was published as a novel in 2016 and it quickly became a favourite of both readers and critics. By now the novel has achieved international success and it has been translated into Finnish, English and Latvian. Kai Aareleid wrote this play on the basis of that novel especially for the Estonian Drama Theatre.