Review: Paratiisisaari
OIL STAINS PARADISE ISLAND
Juha Vakkuri’s new play
is like the Virginia Woolf of paradise
The theme of the play is acutely topical and global.
The opposing forces are clear. The winners are those who take ownership of the Earth’s energy resources. Disappearing are life forms in which thousand-year-old traditions have been used to try to live in balance with the resilience of nature.
Juha Vakkuri has written his new play Paradise Island about his own observations, an Atlantic island that was destroyed by oil. The tragedy is currently being repeated and repeated on all continents, and the paradise island can be located in almost any sea area.
In the play , the fictional island of Sincere is ruled by a traditional tribal chief, King Bukar, but not for long. Before the play is over, the island has already been occupied by representatives of the American oil company, with soldiers in the vanguard.
The theatre will return to the theatre with a political play that kept the 1960s and 1970s awake, which was then called tendentious theatre. The only difference is that Vakkuri does not bring the indigenous people, the power of the masses, to the stage. The crisis is told through the white Paradisers and the king. The main role is taken up by the mess of relationships between Americans and Europeans who have moved to the island.
The island’s community is seen as an oil engineer who spills liquor, a Finnish painter with his hysterical wife, a Dutch volunteer and a communications officer who looks after the interests of the Americans.
Western decadence, booze, sex and oil are thrown against each other and the traditional way of life. Drama is created by drowning a few drunken Americans. And finally,
Aarno Sulkanen’s lavish interpretation of the black king is found killed by a poison mamba sting.
The structure of the play is difficult in the sense that the subplots begin to eat away at the main clause. Is Ella, the dreadlock-girl played by Sanna-June Hyde, pregnant with the Finnish Tatu? What is the relationship between the American Milton and the hysterical Sonja?
A little artificially, the king is sneaked onto the stage as a model for a Finnish artist to tell about the island’s traditions.
Milko Lehto has directed the play as a fast-paced relationship drama in which there is a lot of talk about oil.
Instead of satire, the direction often proceeds as if it were Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, set on a paradise island.
Aino Seppo As a wife, Sonja is very temperamentally frustrated, while Seppo Maijala’s and Sanna Majuri’s Americans handle their duties more restrainedly.
Pekka Huotari’s artist has a Western conscience placed on his shoulders as an understanding of the king. So he is always in great pain.
The most authentic paradise island is the ethno-inspired music placed between the scenes. The soul of the Finnish viewer in November is also warmed by Risto Heikkerö’s turquoise light world, which saves the artificial palms and styrofoam rocks of kitsch sculpture to life.
The programme quotes the American Jared Diamond. He advocates clean oil. Who believes? Indonesia’s national oil company is evil. The American company Chevron, the same company that wanted to take over part of the huge gas field in the Barents Sea, is good.
Therefore, a play is needed to ask who the oil revenues belong to. Or to reflect on the essence of “primitive” and “advanced” culture. A tough argument is, for example, that literacy does not make you happy.