Review: Oscar ja Mamma Roosa

Good and central roles are sometimes difficult for adult female actors.
The monologue of the play “Oscar and Mamma Rose” by the French philosopher and writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt ensures that the role can not become more central.

I have to sincerely admire Kristiina Elstelä’s performance in every way.
Even a two-hour monologue is a great performance.
In addition, Elstelä’s gentle, calm and charismatic presence on stage and the genuine warmth that Oscar and Mamma Roosa radiated to the audience rows was immense.

The definite plus of the play can be found in the sets and, above all, the video screens, through which the “Oscar spirit” is present.
Inventive and telling is the growth of the flower and its withering in the video image… A short and comic cycle of life and death.

You may not be able to laugh at deadly serious things, but it would be good if you could at least smile.
One of the philosophical meanings of the play is perhaps precisely in the fact that the aim is to unearth an insightful and accepting smile even in the face of the finality of life.

However, the text shows “French lightness” – like the finest champagne – compared to the heavy-rowed melancholy of the Finns Party…
If the play had been written by a Finnish philosopher instead of a French philosopher, the pen would have been much heavier and the intricacies would have sunk deeper into the paper.