Review: Sommarboken

The soundscape and the use of scenography is something completely new, and convinces after an initial scepticism.

It almost feels unbelievable that it has taken so long before Tove Jansson’s wonderful, by so many beloved work The Summer Book has been staged at a theatre in Finland. Congratulations to Lilla Teatern for making that choice, and to director Jakob Höglund who has now realized an old dream. At the same time, it may not be easy, as many people probably have an emotional relationship with little Sophia and her grandmother, and an image of what their island looks like – the expectations of the audience can be high.

Thus, it is refreshing to be greeted by a stage image and a realization that you had not expected – or at least I would not have done it.

The premiere had to be postponed by a couple of days due to a small accident during a rehearsal, but on Saturday evening all is well and the performance is a complete and functional package. A package that feels increasingly convincing and well thought out the further into the show we get.

Four main characters

In addition to Jessica Grabowsky’s Sophia and Sue Lemström’s Grandmother, there are two other main characters in the performance: sound designer Hanna Mikander and Sven Haraldsson’s set design. The four have almost equal roles. At first, it feels unfamiliar and even disturbing – as if too much focus is placed on the technical, so that the relationship between Sophia and Grandma does not get a chance to take the place it deserves, and so that the small glittering grains of life wisdom contained in the text risk being drowned out.

The set design consists of boxes of veneer of different sizes, and by moving them around, the archipelago island’s cliffs, paths and forests are created. You can climb on them, crawl into them, hide behind them. So it’s the constant rearranging that initially bothers me, but after a while I happily change my mind and follow fascinated by how the cubes actually build an entire world. Your imagination is running wild.

The soundscape convinces me even faster than the set design, and is a source of delight throughout the performance. Everything that can be heard on the island, from the sound of water and the whisper of the wind to the buzz of insects and bird calls, is created live and analogue on stage. I think it must be a dream job for a sound designer, and Mikander’s ingenuity really deserves praise.

The imagination has flowed even when the other elements have been included in the story: the mushrooms that pop up from the ground, Grandma’s clattering false teeth and her pipe, the boat that is hip. All this contributes to the disarming playfulness that characterizes the performance.

The only physical part of the implementation that I don’t see a clear purpose for is the vertical fluorescent tubes that run around the walls. There’s something about them that doesn’t fit in.

Concerted

So to the lovable couple Sophia and Grandma, Grabowsky and Lemström, who of course are of course the ones on whom everything stands or falls. Without their brilliance, communication, presence and empathy, the performance would only be a complicated, empty choreography. Grabowsky succeeds very well with the not at all easy task of believably playing a child, with everything from facial expressions and gestures to intonation, and to how quickly her mood shifts from joy to anger or sadness. Lemström’s Grandmother is perhaps a bit excessively hunchbacked, but I like her energy and habitus. Her portraits are also varied and nuanced.

Of course, you feel warm for the duo. The love between the two is touching, perhaps most of all in the moments when they are at odds – then they are perhaps the closest to each other.

In addition to love, the big theme is, of course, death. It is constantly present, but in a natural, not too emphatic way. From the dead seabird, to the worry about the father who is out on the water in bad weather, to the dead insects and worms, to, of course, Sophia’s dead mother. Tove Jansson’s text is simple but deep, wise and beautiful.

Pipsa Lonka’s dramatisation is functional and faithful to the original: individual episodes that flow into each other and tell a larger story.

This is a thoroughly sympathetic performance that warms your heart.