Women and Apple Trees

Sally and Ellen grow up in the poor neighbourhoods of Norrköping in the late 19th century. As adults, they meet again and discover a rare strength in one another. Ellen is the quiet, resilient mother struggling to survive a destructive marriage. Sally is outspoken and fearless, a woman who speaks her mind even when no one wants to listen. Around their feet, children weave through everyday life, marked by hardship, loss and moments of togetherness.

Moa Martinson’s 1933 novel portrays women’s living conditions with a perspective that still feels strikingly direct, its language rooted in the soil, labour and survival. It is a story of how women carried both their own lives and one another. Of sisterhood as a force of resistance and friendship as a necessity in a world where security was rarely within reach.

Nearly a century after the novel was written, it continues to move audiences with its social commitment and deeply human portrayal of two women who refuse to be broken.

Now, Women and Apple Trees comes to life on stage in a dramatisation by Tora von Platen, directed by Julia Marko-Nord.