Review: Taju
Taju is the dark but sparkling gem of Helsinki’s theatre autumn
The stage on Pengerkatu is the colour of an average November. Not white, but vaguely blue-gray. In the middle of the stage, on a white stool, sits an introverted-looking woman. Soon her bra will be taken off. However, we are as far from eroticism as you can get. The bra is taken from him so that he does not hang himself in it.
In the opening scene of Liisa Urpelainen’s play “Taju”, written for the Helsinki City Theatre, we are in the Nikkilä mental hospital, where the writer Irja Salla, born Taju Sallinen, has a permanent place. He is treated with methods from the 50s, mostly with hard drugs, but there are glimpses of props on stage referring to more severe forms of treatment, such as electric shocks. Irja herself, or Taju for that matter, treats her mental wounds in her own way: in her father’s biography, she writes about her childhood and relationship with her father in the form it could have been. Happy.
But false.
A continuum of artist photography
A couple of years ago, Liisa Urpelainen’s husband Lauri Sipari and directeda play about the original problems of an artist family, “Conscience”, was seen on the small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. It depicted the writer Juhani Aho’s balancing act trapped by two women, even his sister.
The play Taju by the same authors is related to it, a true-to-life depiction of the original and tough choices of an artist family. But while Conscience was closer to the intermediate category of “quite nice”, Taju has a place somewhere between “excellent” and “great”. It is the gem of Helsinki’s theatre autumn, a finely written and directed drama that touches and engages, makes you cry and laugh.
The drama about the tragic fates of Taju (1912-1955), the daughter of Tyko Sallinen (1879-1955), one of the great figures of Finnish art, lends itself to many ways. It is both a coming-of-age story and a sick story, a depiction of an artist, a drama of passion, live musical theatre, and sometimes even a hilarious cabaret. Laura Jäntti has directed the text into a thoroughly tense performance, in which roller coaster-like performances are also strengths.
In this performance, Tykö Sallinen appears as an unambiguously misogynistic person who is not at all suited to family life. Sallinen became especially famous for his series of Mirri paintings, in which he depicted his wife Helmi (1888-1920) as a pig-nosed, involuntary-looking scoundrel – for no apparent reason other than that Tyko really did not see anything beautiful and lovable in women.
She wanted to raise her daughter Taju in a mold according to her own ideas. The chatter that was part of being a girl had to be excluded from the everyday life of the Sallinen family. Even the Christmas tree was better without decorations, au naturel, and the gifts were the last tinkerbell.
It says quite a lot about Sallinen’s conception of women and family that he and Helmi’s first-born daughter were raised by his sister, who had moved to Denmark – without asking his wife. It left eternal scars on the women of the family.
The Sallinens’ marriage broke down for good in 1916, and Taju was ordered to live with his mother in a divorce, but Tyko went to take her for himself. Helmi broke and died in unclear circumstances a few years later.
Repairing childhood
Urpelainen’s play tells the story of Taju’s relationship with his father in different time levels and life situations. On one level, we see glimpses of the little girl’s longing for a mother, her father’s respect and fears. On the other hand, the emancipation of a young woman who has become independent, but also difficulties in settling into any kind of relationships. The third, most merciless and stirring level is the attempt by the writer Taju, who experienced the horrors of the Great War in Germany and was therefore also mentally shaken, to rewrite the biography of the recently deceased Tyko Sallinen and at the same time rewrite his childhood.
The best thing about both Urpelainen’s text and Jäntti’s direction is that it is neither demonizing nor victimizing. . Tyko does appear as a misogynist and home-made macho, but he’s not necessarily bad on purpose. His character and worldview are distorted, but Tyko does not deliberately try to make his family’s life hell – he just expects his loved ones to adapt. The mind of the senses, on the other hand, has actually been divided in two since he was little. One half of her is Daddy’s Girl in capital letters, the other half is afraid and hateful. When he grows up, he falls somewhere in between, from which he cannot get up. But even in all the dark twists and turns, he still has the will
Encounters between black and colourful
Jäntti’s direction is full of fine slides from one scene to the next, from end to end. With a single stripping of her cape, a nurse at Nikkilä Hospital hatches from the madame of a German brothel (powerfully played by Iida Kuningas), and from Sallinen’s home, we leap 30 years forward into the inner struggles of the middle-aged Taju. The music played by Eero Ojanen on stage accompanies the slides with thought – the musician has a weighty role in the performance without lines.
On the roller coaster of Taju’s life, sorrows and joys vary drastically, but in the final slide, you go towards the black, unable to brake. However, it is not only devastating images and moments that are created on stage, but to the viewer’s relief, the protagonist’s inner minor is eased by hilarious characters that life throws at him. In supporting roles, Rauno Ahonen and Antti Lang get to tear to their heart’s content, both as German cabaret stars and as charmers who aspire to be chosen for the Heart of Consciousness.
The play’s small inner story, the love story between Taju and the German Werner, who was forced back to the front from a military hospital, brings love and thus hope to the stage for a fleeting moment.
On the other hand, the main story doesn’t go all the way. The final point of the tragedy of consciousness is mercifully left unstruck.
Under Jäntti’s direction, Ursula Salo starred handsomely already in Conscience, where she was the humiliating but strong Venny Soldan. The title role of Taju is as if made for Salo. She has always had a natural girlishness and childlikeness, but also strength and frenzy. To represent the life cycle of the sense, all of these are needed, but also a lot of sensitivity and fragility. And there is plenty of everything in Salo , right up to the limit: we see an immensely intense role work that comes close.
Santeri Kinnunen’s acting image has become more diverse in the work of the Helsinki City Theatre in recent years. The role of Tyko Sallinen is a new milestone on this path, very far from the comedy villains that Kinnunen had to do in a row in the last decade. He doesn’t do Tyko without playfulness, which brings a touch of humanity to this misogynist character and on the other hand, a funny clumsiness.
Tyko-Santer sums up something of the basic nature of this play. Although the basic tone of the subject is dark, it is not allowed to roll over the viewer. Family hell, mental hospital, war are not beyond the reach of a lighter touch. Taju does not dare to be called a tragicomedy, but it is a black and variegated artist’s treatise.