STAGE

Rejecting a plea that they were performing in the interests of culture and free expression, a Finnish court on Monday sentenced four Finnish drama students, who stripped naked and hurled human excrement and homemade fireworks at an audience, to seven-month suspended prison terms. Officials in Oulu in western Finland said the four men were also ordered to pay $14,000 in fines and damages. The Finnish National Theater School students faced charges including assault and jeopardizing their audience’s health after a matinee performance of the “Theater of God” in which they threw dung at the audience, then chased them into the street with whips.