Review: Isä

The Father is a touching play about a memory disorder

Memory disorders have increased exponentially in recent years. There is hardly a person left who does not have at least one person with a memory disorder among their relatives or friends.

Helsinki City Theatre’s new play for the spring season, The Father, brilliantly depicts the life of a person with a memory disorder and a relative.

All the typical symptoms and obsessions of a person with a memory disorder are depicted in the play with astonishing accuracy. The viewer can only conclude that this is exactly how it is with us. That’s exactly how my friend’s illness manifests itself.

Sometimes you can burst out laughing in funny and good moments. Sometimes it’s downright scary when a person with a memory disorder has tantrums. Sometimes the sick person regresses to the level of a toddler and a lullaby calms the mind.

The family member is having a hard time in the new situation. The illness requires a lot of patience from the family member and also brings pain, worry and sadness for the future.

Institutional care is the last endpoint for a person with a memory disorder.

Pehkonen glows with a memory disorder

The lead actor Jari Pehkonen is certainly the best of the City Theatre’s cast for the role of a person with a memory disorder. He has previously excelled in heavy and demanding roles, such as the Problem of Seriousness.

Now Pehkonen glows as a father with a memory disorder. His character brings out the many sides of the memory disorder well: the father forgets things and no longer recognizes his relatives. She suspects the nurses of being thieves, but at another moment she is happily flirting and tapping in front of the nurses.

Vuokko Hovatta does a brilliant job as a daughter who mourns her father who disappears into the depths of illness. At the same time, the daughter tries to take care of her father to the best of her ability in addition to work and relationships. Hovatta’s role is harrowing!

I could fully relate to my daughter’s pain when she had to decide to put her father in an institution.

The end of the play must have brought tears to the eyes of every loved one of a person with a memory disorder. The Father is certainly the most touching play of the spring season.