Post Theatre Collective: Carbon

A poetic sci-fi play about encountering the unknown.

Pier Lorenzo Pisano CARBON - Translated by Hannimari Heino

What happens when we encounter something we cannot understand?

Carbon is a poetic play by Italian playwright and filmmaker Pier Lorenzo Pisano about humanity’s first verified encounter with an unknown form of life. It is not a rumour, a vision or a conspiracy theory, but something witnessed by the entire world. And yet no one really knows what has happened.

At the centre of the play are two people: one has experienced something they cannot explain, while the other is trying to make sense of it. Their conversation moves between interrogation, confession and shared bewilderment. Gradually, something more than a strange encounter begins to emerge: memory, loss, grief, and the human need to find meaning even when there are no answers.

All known life on Earth is based on carbon. The play asks what happens when a human being encounters something that does not belong to the same chain of life. Something we cannot identify with. Something that makes us experience our own species, our own bodies and our own limits in a new way.

At the same time, Carbon asks what words we use to name the unknown — and what happens when that act of naming begins to change the way we see others.

Post Theatre Collective brings the play to the Finnish stage for the first time. The Finnish translation was commissioned for the READ Festival, and the 2026 premiere marks the next step in the collective’s work with new international playwriting.

On stage, Roosa Söderholm and Jari Virman meet in this charged encounter. Söderholm received the Best Performance award at Canneseries for the series Guts, while Virman is a Jussi Award-winning actor. Sound design is by Lauri Wuolio, light and video design by Petteri Pietiäinen and Kosti Kinnunen and the production is directed by David Kozma.

Carbon is a science fiction play about human beings — about what happens when something truly alien makes us look at ourselves from the outside for the first time.

Pier Lorenzo Pisano: Hiili ( Carbon)

Director: David Kozma

Actors: Roosa Söderholm ja Jari Virman

Sound design: Atonauer/Lauri Wuolio

Light and video design: Petteri Pietiäinen ja Kosti Kinnunen

Set: David Kozma, Oscar Dempsey

Set design concept development and AI-assisted visualisation: ChatGPT by OpenAI.

A Post Theatre Collective production

Supported by Taide- ja Kulttuurivirasto and City of Helsinki

Performing rights: Nordic Drama Corner Oy

Photo: Darina Rodionova