Review: Aina
Longing for an adult
Kati Kaartinen’s Always is a strong text that shakes, tears and moves the viewer. There is so much to say in the play that at first it feels like director Olka Horila can’t keep it all together.
Towards the end, however, the strings tighten and the play takes shape. There is always a children’s play that every adult should definitely watch.
Always alone
There is always an 11-year-old girl whose father has recently died, her mother is too depressed to take care of her children, and so Aina is also responsible for taking care of her four-year-old brother Aarre. He always bends and bends, and he is not offered the opportunity to break. At night, the girl talks to her dead father and there is a place in the schoolyard where she can wave to her father.
Aina’s task is to take care of her mother, herself and her brother. No one takes care of the girl, the mother is too depressed, the teacher is too strained, the father is too dead and the substitute is too busy for coffee.
Vuokko Hovatta Aina is absolutely eleven years old, lonely and responsible, while the character is crying out for help from all sides. Aarre (Hannes Suominen) also gradually begins to treat Aina more as a mother than a sister.
Aina’s classmates Kalle (Jouko Klemettilä) and Jenni (Vappu Nalbantoglu) are also lonely children, although not as concretely. Kalle gets quality time with his father every now and then, and Jenni’s mother is afraid to be older. Klemettilä is an infuriatingly pre-teen, downright brilliant. Nalbantoglu embodies the result of free rearing quite successfully.
Everything breaks
Aina’s beginning is spent on piling up all the ingredients for a catastrophe and gathering the enormous pressure of malaise. The knots inside the viewer are tightened to the limit until they gradually begin to heal.
In Aina’s story, the improvement is brought by a new neighbour who does not stay to wonder about the adult child, but takes up the matter. The neighbor’s uncle (Rauno Ahonen) is a genuine adult who forces other adults to become adults as well.
The actual distributor is Aina’s birthday party, which is ultimately organized by the neighbor. During the birthday party, the neighbor makes Jenni’s mother take responsibility for her child, gives Kalle meaning and helps shake Aina’s mother back into parenthood.
The play emphasizes the responsibility and role of the adult without preaching, emphasizing that it is the child’s duty and right to be a child. There is always a play filled with joy and sorrow about what life can bring, completely unexpectedly. Always asks one question, what is life?
Kati Kaartinen has built her text so that it speaks to people of all ages. Through the play, the readiness to understand difficulties through the position of both adults and children is opened.
The multidimensional set created by Annukka Pykäläinen lives on today’s school and home world. The set design is very lively and manages to surprise the viewer a few times.
The music and soundscape authenticate Aina nicely.