Money for Nothing

Comedy

Director: Andrus Vaarik
Author: Michael Cooney
Translator: Hannes Villemson
Set designer: Andrus Jõhvik
Costume designer: Marta Vaarik
Lighting designer: Karmen Tellisaar
Music designer: Reigo Ahven

Cast: Nils Mattias Steinberg, Triin Brigitta Heidov, Mauri Liiv, Priit Loog, Enn Keerd, Astra Irene Susi, Kleer Maibaum, Andrus Vaarik, Carmen Mikiver, Kati Ong

For two years, unemployed homeowner Eric Swan has been fraudulently claiming every kind of benefit from the social services on behalf of fictitious tenants. As the daily flood of cheques, forms and paperwork for family, child, single-parent, housing, maternity, large-family and widow’s benefits; old-age and disability pensions; carer’s and holiday pay; and Christmas and workplace-accident compensation—and his army of imaginary people—starts to overwhelm him, Eric decides to put an end to the fraud. But just then, a social services officer turns up needing the signature of one of the non-existent tenants. A perfectly ordinary October morning in house number 344 on Chilton Road, in rainy East London, becomes a tangle of mistaken identities, disguises, misunderstandings and increasingly wild lies.

In the old days, it was quite common for actors who had made their name in Pärnu to move on to shine on the stages of the capital, and it was not unusual for stars from the capital to come and work for a while in the resort town’s theatre. This still happens today, but the old custom of staging the same plays in every theatre has almost entirely disappeared. That makes it all the more pleasing that, for Endla Teater’s 115th anniversary, Andrus Vaarik—who came to Pärnu a few years ago to “make it”—is bringing his most successful comedy as a director to the stage here in a new guise.