Review: Viattomuuden loppu

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Family hell beats media criticism

Pasi Lampela’s The End of Innocence deals with important themes. The most commendable thing about the new play is the relentless depiction of the people of our time.
Last winter, Lampela directed Lars Norén’s depiction of family hell at the Lahti City Theatre, Bobby Fischer lives in Pasadena. Lampela has stated Norén as one of her role models, and the similarities between the two plays cannot be overlooked.
There is a decaying family that gathers together to spend a special evening; there is alcoholism; a fussy mother with her “we have so much fun together” activities; distant, self-righteous father; Two adult neurotic children, one of whom has taken on the whole family’s illness by going crazy on his own.
We are clearly in the present, in a time when family no longer has the same meaning as before, but everyone is left to their own devices, everyone is expected to be a success story, and anyone can express their assessments of anyone’s personal qualities without a hint of discretion.
People are addicted, short-sighted, and cynical; They are well-groomed and pleasant on the outside, but when conflicts come, they fumble, swear, scream and sniff at the bottle.
That is something to think about.

Strong characters

Lampela has been puzzled by the media’s power to stigmatize and condemn people in sensitive scandalous cases. At the center of The End of Innocence is a successful businessman Antti Ranta (Pekka Laiho), who has caused a scandal by slapping his subordinates.

Press conferences and board meetings have been held, and the matter will be resolved in a “media trial”, which the Ranta family will gather to watch.
The play skilfully reveals the tensions within the family, thanks to the talented actors. Hannele Lauri effectively plays a socialite whose bulging exterior is torn under the pressure of hysteria and whose only trump card in life is endless self-enhancement. Pekka Laiho’s Antti Ranta is hard-boiled and in the end only a self-care buffoon.
As Annika’s daughter, Milka Ahlroth is a bundle of nerves suffering from basic insecurity, who screams her bad feelings equally to everyone close to her.

You are working too hard!

Niko Saarela’s Kosti wanders around the luxury house as a collapsed ex-top pianist, stirring up outbursts of rage in all members of his family one after the other. Kosti’s fate raises the question of whether an individual also has the right to fail.

Juha Veijonen plays the succulent son-in-law Arto, who combines stupidity, ambition and addiction. Arto has several times kicked mines hidden under the floor mats of a sick family, and he is not a pure bunny himself.
A refreshingly new perspective is that the older generation resents the younger generation for devoting themselves too much to work. We have gone so far in work communities tightened by the intensive economy that the age-old confrontation between hard-working middle-aged and sluggish young people no longer applies!

Anticlimax

The problem with The End of Innocence is that it feels as if Lampela didn’t really know how to choose between family hell and media whirlwind. The "media trial", which has been prepared since the beginning of the play, is in the end in a strange way the anticlimax after all the outbursts performed by the family.

It is clear that the time bomb of the Ranta family has been ticking for a long time. The so-called media attack is just the last spark that blows up the scenes.
Admittedly, the end with the delicate films depicting the children of the family remains open, but the viewer can guess that nothing very beautiful will be built on these ruins anymore.

Pasi Lampela: The End of Innocence. Premiere on the small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre on 29.8.2003. Script and direction: Pasi Lampela, set design: Katariina Kirjavainen, costumes: Maija Pekkanen, lighting: Juhani Leppänen, sound: Mauri Siirala. Cast: Pekka Laiho, Hannele Lauri, Niko Saarela, Milka Ahlroth, Juha Veijonen.