Review: Everstinna
The Colonel is a powerful story about hate and love – Heidi Herala shines on the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre
The Colonel of the Helsinki City Theatre was born when actress Heidi Herala read an interview with Rosa Liksom and rushed to buy the newly published novel. Herala called Liksom on the way to the bookstore and asked: “Could this be turned into a theatre performance”.
When Heidi Herala splashes onto the stage as a drunken old Colonel, wearing a shabby bathrobe and reindeer antlers under her arm, I sigh contentedly in the audience. Here’s the magic!
The actor’s deep, inspired relationship with the work is immediately conveyed on stage.
Rosa Liksom’s novel, published in 2017, is a rough and in many ways disturbing reading experience. The book has spawned powerful theatre that depicts the protagonist’s growth from a little girl to an old woman, her innermost feelings – and at the same time the whole of Finland that is rumbling and shaking around her.
The Second World War and the years before and after the war are clearly outlined in both the book and the performance, but the events are constantly viewed through the experiences of the Colonel.
“The time when a man became a woman was a time of hatred and revenge.”
As Liksom writes and Herala says on stage: “The time when I was born was a time of wrath. The time when a man became a woman was a time of hatred and revenge.”
The magnificent performance has been directed and adapted by Susanna Airaksinen, who graduated from the Theatre Academy a couple of years ago, and who has previously received praise for her interpretation of Tommi Kinnunen’s Neljantienristeys for the Turku City Theatre.
Airaksinen seems to have a good grip on the history of our country and the stories of fierce, contradictory women.
The protagonist of Liksom has been inspired by Annikki Kariniemi, a writer from Ostrobothnia, whom I had never heard of until I read the novel and familiarised myself with its background.
The Colonel, the daughter of a Jaeger, lives her childhood in Lapland in the early 1900s. He grows up to admire the Civil Guard ideology, and the ecstatic heart of the Junior Lotta beats to the beat of German “itealism”. She first becomes a colonel’s wife, later a writer and teacher.
“My father made me the daughter of white Finland, Colonel Nazi. I’m not ashamed of either of them,” the Colonel says.
“My father made me the daughter of white Finland, Colonel Nazi. I’m not ashamed of either of them.”
With irresistible force, he is forced to marry a colonel who is 28 years older than him, who turns out to be a violent cheater who kicks his pregnant wife until the blood runs out and the fetus dies.
The story is full of frank sex, both devoted pleasure and subjugation, pedophilia and rape.
The performance succeeds just like Liksom’s novel: despite its unbearably painful subjects, it is also beautiful, full of humour and vitality.
Heidi Herala has the story in her hands, whether she is in a mental hospital, in a village or in Germany to greet the Nazis.
The set design is magnificent in its simplicity. The soft skins spread out on the stage take you north, and as the lights change, a real swamp emerges from them, where the colonel feels connected to the whole of creation throughout her life.
Another detail: when the colonel and colonel leave for Helsinki, a large window grid framed by lights falls from the ceiling. There it is, the splendor of a capital bathed in neon lights. The same grid suddenly turns into a swastika or an airplane propeller. Insightful, light, bright!
The Colonel’s sister work of sorts is Wanda Dubiel’s monologue from Sofi Oksanen’s novel The Purge, which runs at Teatteri Jurkka. Both works depict roughly the same period, in both the woman’s body is a battlefield, both performances are supported by an amazing female actress.
The monologue is a natural form for this story as well, as Liksom’s original work is told by the Colonel, his speech, his memories. The voices of Santeri Kinnunen and Rauno Ahonen complement the tapestry seamlessly and stylishly.
“Herala effortlessly transports a tapestry that crisscrosses between flashbacks, memories and the present.”
Liksom’s novel is in Meänkieli, and Herala speaks a fluent mixture of Meänkieli and standard language. The language solution works excitingly: the Meänkieli words serve as a reminder of the world and landscape in which the Colonel lives, and the change of language does not bother her at all.
Herala effortlessly transports a tapestry that crisscrosses between flashbacks, memories and the present.
He miraculously fills the stage with ease. How can one woman’s performance be so rich and rich, so… Big?