Review: Tiimi

ENGAGING DRAMA ABOUT THE CITY PEOPLE


Playwright and director Pasi Lampela has already distinguished himself with interesting productions at Teatteri Jurkka, for example. Now Lampela has both written and directed the play Tiimi about the generation that now, in its forties, looks back on its youth in the self-centred, narcissistic 1980s, when city dwellers and urbanism prevailed.

Tiimi is a performance that, more or less, in addition to the actors’ gestural expressions, is entirely text-based and requires sensitivity in order to be able to perceive what has gone wrong in the relationships between the characters that gradually unfold on stage. The dialogue runs smoothly, but sometimes it seems that some lines remain a little odd in the context.

The direction is traditional, but the excellent acting creates strong moods and intense stage presence. The first act remains somewhat static, but in the second act the tension tightens and the psycho-drama gains momentum. Here, the play’s female roles appear to be significantly richer in content than the male roles.

Four people work at a company that deals with film, among other things. The company’s screenwriter dies and a reckoning with the present and the past becomes relevant.

Sara Paavolainen, in particular, makes a wonderfully grotesque, parodic interpretation of the play’s director. Paavolainen’s mimetic print-register is brilliant in combination with the spectacular creations she has been guided with by clothing designer Markus Tsokkinen. Ursula Salo’s widow of the screenwriter has its highlights in the second act. The brilliant women, which also include the company’s all-rounder (Merja Pietilä), are assisted by the men in the company, the subtle Juha Veijonen and Carl-Kristian Rundman.