Review: Täti ja minä

Aunt Hiljainen and Poju Pohelias bring theatrical joy


Ritva Valkama is such a strong theatre brand that when her name appears on the cast list of any play, the performances are immediately sold out for the entire season. However, the theatre does not have to ride on the name alone, as Valkama’s acting is still diamond. Retirement has not extinguished the fire of doing things to the fullest.

Canadian Morris Panych’s black but not dark comedy Aunt and Me is like it was written for an actor like Valkama. The role of an elderly aunt requires charisma and the skill of wordless acting. Valkama has plenty of qualities to share with others, and so he does: generously but with small means to share his brilliant expertise with the audience.

When an actor like Jouko Klemettilä , saturated with elasticity, bubbles up as a counterpart in Studio Elsa, it would create a theatre that can be enjoyed even from a slightly more modest pen, but to top it all off, Panychi’s play is cleverly captivating even as a text. It is at the same time hilarious and mind-blowing in its absurdity, but also touching. And when the viewer is momentarily moved into a state of emotion, then suddenly the text hook explodes from the back left and we are in a completely different emotional state, with a curved face, i.e. a grin or a smile.


Me
yourself

The basic pattern of Panych’s story is clear. A relative stumbles into the apartment building home of a lonely elderly person, whose actions are not guided by love of neighbor and a vocation to volunteer with the elderly, but by sheer greed, a desire to get hold of the supposed inheritance money. The old lady is bedridden and speechless, while the young man is all the more mouthy and lively in a mouse-like manner.

The title of the play is also apt in the sense that Kemp, who was neurotized by the tricky family relationships of his childhood, is indeed one Self. He talks about himself incessantly. He is self-loving, self-sufficient, self-loathing and almost self-destructive. He is not very interested in his aunt’s life, only an encounter that has been loosely remembered from the haze of memories is worth noting, and even that is tinged with bitterness. Kemp is even more interested in his aunt’s death, but his mother is a resilient kind of person, and the rooster’s visions of the future do not want to come true, even though she tries to help the aunt to sleep peacefully. I’m about to get a kick in my own ankle for the worst time.

And then Panych’s text makes a sudden braking and u-turn and no more than that, so as not to spoil the joy of future viewers.


Silence
art


A couple of years ago, Raila Leppäkoski directed his own play Two Primates at the Group Theatre, in which silence was golden. It was practically a stage version of a silent film: Martti Suosalo pulled through the father/son roles with facial expressions and body, Iiro Rantala with the role of the neighbour on the piano. Not speaking is also an essential part of the play Aunt and I, and Leppäkoski has this demanding element of performance in his possession. Well, he has as good a game as Valkama as a “tool”, so it’s no wonder that things are going smoothly.

Even though Elsa’s stage space is a bit dreary for a chain of events that is condensed into one small apartment – Jyrki Pylväs’ set design doesn’t make it much more compact, but Kari Leppälä’s lights are – the cooperation between the director and the actors achieves a strong intensity that sometimes grows to claustrophobic proportions.

The actors have already been praised with many kinds of quality words, but it must be said that Valkama and Klemettilä’s ability to reach each other on stage when playing people who are a few light years away from each other is thrilling to watch. Listen, chemistry, physics and all other areas of the natural sciences meet in a way that brings us joy and upliftment.