THE WINTER WAR

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Summary

In the grim winter of 1939-40, little Finland heroically defended itself against a giant Soviet Union. But Toivo, a crippled violinist, finds a greater heroism: confronting armies with dance, and defeating death with his music and his passionate love for Trina — and for her soldier-fiancé, Toivo's best friend. The play begins shortly before the expected outbreak of war.

Opening scene: (drifting snow in woods at night)

KATRINA enters on skis. She stops.

KATRINA: Snow blowing over snow. Are we no more than this? Tiny, fragile, brief, and innumerable, scurrying across the night, hurrying from nowhere to nowhere . . . . what's the difference between a snowflake and a soul?

What does it matter if our boys' blood spills red in all this white? Warm blood will, in minutes, freeze.

And will, in a few months, melt again.

Blood and snow together will in April water the fields and forests of Finland, and then all will be green again. But what if Nicholas is not here in the Spring? What if Nicholas is not here watching the geese alight on the lake, inhaling the fumes of fresh-plowed earth, plucking violets to arrange in my hair? What if Nicholas in the Spring is . . . NOT!

A million Aprils will never thaw a world where Nicholas is not.

Yet, whether war comes or not, there was a world before Nicholas, and there will be a world after Nicholas. The stupidity . . . the stupidity of it all! What lunatic, what criminal lunatic, created a world where a Nicholas, like a snowflake, appears and disappears?

Is that why men fight wars? Do they kill each other because they can't kill God?

(Katrina scoops up a handful of snow and kisses it. Then with a finger she scrapes a flake from her lip. She speaks to it.)

Linger, Nicholas, linger. There have been enough wars. One more will accomplish nothing. The snow will come, the snow will go, and all the blood of all the boys of all the nations of all the ages will not change that. Don't spurt your blood into a drift of snow. I'm warm, Nicholas. I'm warm. Die in me.

There is no other victory. We'll win, we'll win, we'll win, we'll win with one kiss, my brave boy, with one embrace, one thrust of you into me . . . .