Review: Kuilu

Lampela can describe hollowness

Pasi Lampela is in the lead. The playwright-director has just brought her new book The Abyss to Studio Elsa at the Helsinki City Theatre, and this autumn she also published a collection of short stories called Kuolematautia (Death Diseases) (WSOY).

Lampela’s Geneva (2007) dealt with the ill-gotten wealth and hollowness of life of the casino rich left behind by the previous boom.
In the abyss , we are once again in chilly splendor. There is financial success, but every member of the family feels so sick and is something so different from their fake shell that it is downright delicious to watch.

Daughter Miia (brilliant Anna-Maija Tuokko), who graduated as a lawyer abroad, returns to her home on the surface to Korea but rotten on the inside. Over the course of one evening and night, he forces the whole family to make revelations. Her mother (Satu Silvo) has to tell her who Miia’s father is. It also becomes clear why the talented older brother Jani (Sami Hokkanen) has lost his mental health and grip on life.

The night is torturous as the façade collapses floor by floor. The role of the mother’s husband Antti is dazzled by Oskari Katajisto. He is a rancid fun-goer with a steel-hard abuser under his slippery shell.