Review: Kultalampi
Heroes of their own lives
By the glittering water, it is sunset: an old couple spends their summer on a pond where a pair of black-throated divers swim as they have for almost half a century. Is this the last summer?
Many people remember the film for which Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda won the Oscars. The play was completed in 1978, and the Finnish National Theatre performed it the following year. Actor-writer Ernest Thompson has now adapted his popular text for a Florida remake earlier this year.
It’s no wonder that the text has found its audience everywhere. After all, seniors are usually only allowed to appear in the theatre as slobs of supporting roles, who are certainly no longer the heroes of their own lives. The task of the goofy grandfathers or grandmothers is to bring comedy to the scenes of those who live a so-called full life.
In Kultalampi Ethel, 69, and Norman, 79, are stars: they live their lives to the fullest. The play is also a text by the star actors, the other roles are complements to the lives of Ethel and Norman, even their daughters.
* * *
The text relies on the charm of the actors. Norman is allowed to be grumpy, cunning and moving, Ethel is allowed to be sensible, witty and lovable.
The best thing about directing Arto af Hällström is the space and calmness that Matti Ranin and Tea Ista get around them. Let’s not rush at all, let’s not fish for laughs. Ranin gets to read her magazines with her magnifying glass, Ista gets to look at the black-throated loon on the pond, and the viewer gets to know a couple who have been riveted to each other for decades.
The warm comedy gradually emerges from character images and blunt remarks that Norman and Ethel know how to make to each other. There is no pretense or pretense in human relationships. The dialogue is realistic and natural.
Samppa Lahdenperä’s living room feels very large, but I guess the realism of the text has been considered to require the home scenery spreading from side to side with the water reflections in the background
The text touches on the sore points of old age: fear of memory failure, physical deterioration. The relationship with her own child has been distant: the controlling father has caused rebellion in the daughter, not least because she is similar to her father.
Kristiina Halttu is a cool-headed daughter who, thanks to her new relationship with a man, finally feels that she is growing up and understanding her father better at the age of forty.
The man, Kari Mattila, is self-conscious enough to impress the capricious Norman. The man’s 13-year-old son, Mika Ranin, brings new vitality to Norman, who probably would have wanted a boy, a fishing buddy.
Jouko Klemettilä is a joyful postman, a memory from his daughter’s youthful summers.
* * *
Time passes, people begin to understand the consequences of its speed. The fragility of life makes me wonder.
When the familiar path suddenly seems completely unfamiliar, Matti Ranin describes Norman’s panic in a moving, skillfully small way. Tea Istan’s wise Ethel masters both irony and affection.
Because of their full-bodied work, this American text, which ends up being quite modest in its dimensions and at times still feels long, is worth watching.
Thompson’s text is not a great drama like Williams or Miller , but there is not the slightest sentimentality in Ranin and Ista, just a rare, warming humour.