Review: Täti ja minä

HILARIOUSLY ON A SERIOUS TOPIC

The importance of an actor’s charisma is emphasized in the chamber comedy directed by Raila Leppäkoski at Studio Elsa.

Ritva Valkama utters only two words before the intermission. An impressive contrast is Jouko Klemettilä’s bean stew that churns out the flow of thought. Both actors are under the audience’s gaze throughout the performance, just the two of them.

Grace is an elderly woman stuck in bed. Kemp has received a letter from his aunt, on the basis of which he leaves his position as a bank clerk and rushes to take care of his aunt. 30 years have passed unnoticed since the last meeting.

Kemp is openly fussing in his thoughts, usually a little thoughtlessly. The conversations always end up with funeral plans, drawing up a will, and funeral music is also played from the current album.

Valkama’s silent mime commentary on the boy’s thoughtless, tactless projects is wonderful theatre. As a director, Leppäkoski trusts in the full range of expressive power of his actors – and goes for it! Such a unique skill can only develop over decades.

The play, which has been carefully considered by the Canadian Morris Panych , is built on the form of a conversational comedy familiar from North American television. One stage image around the sofa, non-existent physicality, text that relies on apt throws. In the TV format, the viewer is helped with pre-recorded bursts of laughter.

However, Aunt and Me is not a systematically empty laughter bomb. It deals with a person’s relationship with their loved ones, their own benefits and calculations.

Kemp watches from the window what is happening on the street and in the house opposite. Comments to the aunt say a lot about the alienation and isolation of modern people. The plot twists of the clever text offer the viewer a deliciously insightful theatre evening.