– –
In Niskavuori in urban conditions
The play about Ahti Karjalainen unfolds into a family tragedy
Kukka-Maaria Karjalainen: Father. Helsinki City Theatre, small stage. Directed by Arto af Hällström, set design and costumes by Sari
Salmela, lighting design Matti Ijäs, sound design Kirsi Peteri, cast: Antti Litja, Leena Uotila, Aino Seppo, Marjatta
Raita, Raili Tiensuu, Vappu Nalbantoglu, Jukka Juolahti and Sasu Tuominen.
On Thursday, the premiere audience followed the premiere of The Father at the Helsinki City Theatre intensely, some perhaps
Relieved, others disappointed: no sensations, especially not political ones. The only thing that was really different was that the City Theatre’s
The roof of the small side of the auditorium is leaking. Tiptiptip. You wouldn’t believe that a person has been to the moon. The sound effect was blocked during the intermission. Based on Kukka-Maaria Karjalainen’s abundant and interesting biography of the Father, dramatised by Saara Kesävuori
The stage version of the life and lost opportunities of an exhausted politician enters the stage as a traditional family tragedy.
It does not reach the multi-level currents of the biography itself, but it has certainly found something in the cornucopia that
Theatre is born.
Pretty fast Her father’s relationships and counter-force settings remind me of Hella Wuolijoki’s play The Young Lady of Niskavuori. No offense,
But it will. There is an old mistress, a country woman who trusts in her God, from whom her son Ahti begs for a response without getting approval throughout his life.
God doesn’t like politics. There is a young mistress Päivi Karjalainen, who even leaves the unfaithful man’s home, but returns to the minister’s
and to take care of the family’s honor. And there is Juhani, aka Ahti, a man who gets hold of power, but can’t survive and can’t cope with himself either. Liquor and strange women
give the spiral the final momentum. I’m sorry to say, but Hella Wuolijoki told all this more powerfully than Saara Kesävuori’s dramatization of the Father. There is little Finnish politics in Father, a few obligatory twists and turns that are part of the course of life, ministership with its new demands on life,
The OSCE meeting and at the end President Urho Kekkonen’s rude letter of resignation. That’s pretty much it. The important thing is the family and the past, the father’s
and the relationship between the daughter, the relationship between the wife and the husband.
Especially the play’s At the beginning, the narrative is thin and dragging. The first big scene between father and daughter together is almost devoid of content,
Many others are general narratives that have been planed to be problem-free. The translation included in the second act and the passionate and pathetic ending of the sad story even charge the performance with a touching
the final ascent. Ahti is left lying on a revolving stage that turns into a starry sky. The father misses his own father. Death repairs. And the viewer? This shouldn’t happen here, but it happened anyway. We saw the tragedy of a talented person. On a more general level of the narrative, this is probably a question of more of a conflict between the public and the personal than, for example,
about the power struggles of our recent history and their methods. This is probably what the viewer is wanted to think.
The Father of the City Theatre It would probably be a much thinner theatrical experience than we have seen if we didn’t have Antti Litja for the role of Ahti Karjalainen. Of course, there is plenty of praise for others as well, director Arto af Hällström for the smooth running of the ensemble and set designer Sari
Salmela for the descriptive details of the stage design, suitcases and the like, as well as the lively
rides. Lighting designer Mika Ijäs’ contribution was also decisive in terms of both the atmosphere and the dramaturgy. But the most decisive is Antti Litja, who nicely doses his Karelian a manly Finnish emotionality, authenticity to crying,
the right to rejoice. With her presence and charisma, Litja fills the space and also the episodes
where the character doesn’t have much of a role in his own scenes. Anti Litja is not trying to be Ahti Karjalainen. He is that too, but to my eyes he is more like Antti Litja both as an actor and
as itself. The solution carries and lasts.
Still, The whole family circle is built as alive as it can, precisely in the work of the actors. Arto af Hällström has got a good grip on them
and trusting relationship, for example with Aino Seppo in the role of Kukka-Maaria. Aino Seppo recharges after surviving the initial over-trying
A caring person in a fresh and unpretentious way, in its clarity a sufficient counterforce to the chaotic nature of the father. I also liked Leena Uotila’s Päivi Karjalainen, the sense of humour, gentleness and warmth, less
about the rather miserably written and screaming scene where Päivi hears about her husband’s infidelity. Pathetic. Raili Tiensuu is a charmingly sturdy old mistress, Marjatta Raita as a mother-in-law born of small gestures, a firm connoisseur of life,
Vappu Nalbantoglu as a sick sister is sensitive, albeit one-linerd. The role was thus written. The Helsinki City Theatre’s The Father is not a case, but it won’t be a flop either. The performance is more impressive than its tools.