Review: Missä kuljimme kerran

Westö’s Mind of Man and Landscape as Interpreted by Kari Heiskanen

Where We Walked, written by Kjell Westö, draws a picture of the capital of an independent country, its inhabitants and the conflict caused by the difference in starting points.

Bringing a brick work to the stage is quite a chore. The story, which takes place over a long period of time, with its several central characters, is inevitably fragmented and difficult to construct.

Directed by Kari Heiskanen, the performance leans heavily on the Brechtian tradition and focuses more on phenomena than on characters. People’s fates feed the center of events and quickly flee from there.

Above all, the characters represent their worldview and social place, and through them culture and its philosophies are born.

On an almost empty stage, the spotlights pick up fast-moving scenes like camera images, panning the whole of Helsinki across the stage with the power of photographs and running troops into both battle and dance.

Images captured by the camera

The Widing family and their photography studio witness the events from many perspectives. Seppo Maijala’s father focuses the camera’s eye on the landscapes of Helsinki, while his son Eccu (Eero Aho) focuses on people.

Eccu’s delicate mind absorbs nightmarish images from the battle between the Reds and the Whites and inevitably cracks.

Aho plays the role of a young idealist, tinged with hysteria and melancholy, in a harrowingly touching way, and is left languishing in the play’s bleak ending.

Understanding and forgiveness are teacher-journalist Ivar Grandell’s weapons in a divided country, but they also describe the man’s relationship with the twists and turns of his private life. Pekka Valkeejärvi’s interpretation is immensely intimate and warm, even on the big stage of the Helsinki City Theatre.

Lilliehjelm’s siblings Cedi (Pekka Huotari) and Lucie (Vuokko Hovatta) are prominently present everywhere that happens: Cedi politically active and Lucie trying out everything new and fascinatingly dangerous.

First, the cars, speed and frantic rhythms arrive in Helsinki. Later, the airship drops its swastika ads, and Finns also get excited about new ideas. A lot of space is given to the image of the times, sometimes too much, as the rhythm of the play falters.
The narrators comment on the time and the characters, the static atmosphere is broken with strong trajectories, and the atmosphere is coloured with songs.

At the beginning of the play, Enok Kajander (Petri Johansson), who referendively lights gas lanterns, takes his 16-year-old son Allu (Niko Saarela) to a house search while working as a Red Guard, which seals his fate.

Saarela’s role as a brisk sailor and a self-respecting football talent from Helsinki is a tragic figure in the performance, a touch to all eras.