Lovers’ Chorus

A couple wakes up at home in the middle of the night. “I can’t breathe,” the woman says. “She can’t breathe,” the man repeats. They rush to the car and drive to the hospital. Agonising moments follow: the woman is receiving treatment in critical condition, while the man waits in the waiting room, tormented by uncertainty. Eventually life goes on, but what has happened irrevocably changes the course of the lovers’ life together. Lovers’ Chorus captivates from its very first lines. Written and directed by Portuguese playwright Tiago Rodrigues, the work takes the audience to the heart of a relationship between two people. It is a choral play, a lyrical story: the couple describes, in two voices, a situation in which one of them comes close to death. The two versions, told in parallel, differ slightly. The lives and memories of two people intertwine in two monologues that at times become a dialogue, unite and then separate again. Lovers’ Chorus celebrates love, vitality and the exceptionally strong bond between two people in a situation where the continuation of life hangs by a thread. The work will be presented in Espoo, directed by Tiago Rodrigues himself. Jussi Sorjanen, artistic director of &, serves as assistant director. Alma Pöysti and Elmer Bäck dazzle on stage. &:’s Lovers’ Chorus marks the fourth time Rodrigues has directed this work, originally titled Coro Dos Amantes. First created in Portugal in 2007, the work has since had its own language versions in France (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, 2021), Greece (Onassis Stegi, 2024) and in Catalan in Spain (Teatre Lliure, 2025).